The ability to tap the life force depends on where we make our reality, where we sink our well; here it dries up, we have exhausted the possibilities of something yet we still expect life-giving energy from it, so it is time to sink a new well, to seek other sources of nourishment for our life.

Instead of water there is mud. The well is exhausted and no animals, no manifestation, is refreshed by it. The animals know by instinct, but our own intuitive feeling is inactive and ignored in this tao.

Feeling is a flow, and by feeling the life force more in this tao where it is difficult to manifest it we are defining by feeling, creating by feeling. This will create more of our own images and we will not reach the experience of the source which is the quite innocent and inconsequent experience the tao is offering.

Fish, our manifestations in the life force or water, are first defined by feeling; we are hunting them with our feeling, trying to find them. The water level has been raised to the surface by our feeling but it becomes filled with our images and our hunting for manifest reality. Our method is not sound so the pitcher is cracked and leaks.

Here the life force flows in outer activity, but according to trigram Li of the tao our responses are hesitant and cannot take advantage, cannot see the possibilities so that the inhibitions in the situation are not overcome, but there is the possibility.

Access to the water is no longer blocked but we are not tasting it. If the king, our identifying syndrome, were wise it would be shared by the many parts of our identity. The need in this tao is to taste the emerging life force, not to project it outwards.

The emerging life force ceases to provide new activity for us to identify. Interaction goes on within us (the Ting) acting upon itself; our attitudes change.

To have sons, a re-birth of our line, we must mate. To clear out old ways we have we must invert the sacrificial vessel. In both these we change our judgement of rules as to what is important—that the sacred vessel should be venerated no matter what it contains, or that to take a concubine is an indulgence. This is the root of changing ourselves, we no longer assume what we have previously taken as our law.

When feeling is active there is activity within the Ting, for it is we who are the sacrificial cooking pot in this tao. It is within, not dependent upon the other, an internal fermentation which will produce a new compound of ourselves. In this we resolve problems that have seemed insoluble.

For “the others” some translators have used “the enemy” and others “the comrades”; the important idea is that this is an inner state undisturbed by what goes on outside.

Our particular inner activity in this tao is not related to outer activity, hence the image of it going on within a pot, so the increase of outer activity in this line is a distraction from the tao, a misunderstanding of it.

When we embark on outer action our movements are governed by outer factors (we change the outside of the Ting) and the inner changes (the fat of the pheasant) are not experienced. Rain produces new growths, so progress, the lack of which we regret, returns when conditions become suitable again.

In this tao we have an inactive outer reality; If identity becomes involved there we remove our support of the changes going on within.

The Ting has three short legs upon which it stands, supporting it off the ground, the world, and these symbolize our connection with the outer. In this line we reject our separation from the outer reality and so start projecting our reality upon it which has the image of spilling ourselves.

Here we become less involved in the inactivity of intuitive feeling (line 2); as we cease to judge it and so tie it down we can move with the tao (our circumstances) once more.

This change enables the movement of the Ting to be active (yellow handles), we are centred in our inner self and outer value (gold) is one with eternal value (the rings). Continuing with this brings good fortune, which is remaining centred so that, in the image, we carry our Ting always without spilling it—without identifying ourselves outside.

To be involved in the emerging life force here is to actually be the change that the tao represents; we do not accomplish change, we are changed, we become change itself as our mode of being.

Jade has the illusive quality of perfection, of just-so-ness, a quality that cannot quite be captured in words and if so captured does not sing. This quality is similarly undefinable here where we are so centred that we are the centre.

Here the source is changing towards active manifestation; if we wait peacefully it will reach the outside in time. It is the source that carries our activities.

Regret disappears because activity (the horse which carries identity) returns of its own accord. The evil company is the narrow frame of mind which demands that it gets what it wants, and now, but we do not tangle with that, we let the tao unfold.

When we feel the life force in this tao we feel opposition, the narrowness of a single-minded point of view. To become aware of such a situation within ourselves is not a mistake, but it is uncomfortable.

We come to realize something quite suddenly and cannot escape from it, there is nowhere to go (our lord is the one we must follow). We meet him coming the other way but it is good to see truth when, or particularly when, it is going the opposite way to the one we are facing.

Our present outer activity comes to the end of its energy and our attempts to proceed appear to be opposed.

The good end comes because we give up futile effort and allow the tao. The trouble comes because we were insufficiently aware.

Here we accept the outer world as our way of being. Participation is symbiotic relationship instead of opposition and this is no error; it does carry the danger of forgetting the tao and entering a narrow reality.

Here is a very inner act but it is occurring in our conscious identity. Our interest in the silence of intuitive feeling has been to enliven it, not to accept it, because no other activity was available. Now we cease this and so trust the life force even though it is not doing what identity wanted—it is a change in mind, a change of mind.

The one with whom he relates innerly is the “companion” (see section 1, page 2) but in outer life this may work through others. When the outer identity and the inner companion are not separated there is certainty and no question of error.

In this tao the emerging life force is unchanging (line 1 is yang) and we have felt opposed to this. We now see things differently.

The pig is nourishment but obscured by mud (confusion); the waggon-load of phantoms are frightening appearances. By ceasing to oppose we become unopposed, for the opposition in this tao is a misunderstanding of our situation which causes us to fear it.