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.

Here we are concerned with our quietness of feeling (the yang line 2); we experience it. To experience the existing inner quietness is to experience the inner being as it is.

This is its natural condition and we taste it, experience it. It is pure because we have not put identifications into it. Here we experience without identifying, and this is what the tao offers.

Our concern in line 6 of this tao has been to experience the emerging life force because of a lack of flow or a lack of “depth” in our experience. The tao is about not being able to reach this inner depth and here in this moving line the tao is ending so we are no longer concerned because we have “found a way”.

What has made it difficult to experience the water was a lack of reach and an inability to hold it; our ability to reach the life force depends on our not turning it into something else that we want; our ability to hold it is our ability to hold our own identifying, our own self, empty.

If the life force appears to falter here it is a temporary swing; gathering together is the prevailing movement and it will certainly manifest itself. If we feel insecure due to lack of present support we can gain confidence by looking overall, where gathering together has strength and confidence.

Gathering together has its ups and downs and if we have our being too acutely in the present this appears as gathering and scattering.

The change occurring in us is an inner gathering together and feeling turns inwards and becomes quiet. This moves with the tao, we await the change, we nurture it, but do not try to distinguish it even with feeling—we are allowing it to be itself.

Allowing involves the sacrifice of separate will, without this sacrifice feeling remains a feeling “about” experience and not a feeling from within it.

Although gathering together is internal, identity still needs a flow and action itself is not against the tao; a rhythm of activity, little things, keeps structure in place and feelings secure. Here we need to act but not to focus our being in the act.

The regret comes from the focusing, for the activity is a necessary part of our situation but will not carry our life flow.

Our outer reality (line 3) is in an active state and by identifying in this while the inner strength is gathering together we interfere less with the process; also we are then in the right place when the new energy is manifest.

Here we are identifying with active feeling which centres identity and gathers its elements together.

The regret we have is that some parts are unworthy, untrustworthy, wrong. Without acceptance of these parts we cannot be gathered together.

Our being is now less involved in the process of gathering together. We are not yet ready to accept the consequences of sacrificing our separateness (or what we think are the consequences).

It is not an error to continue in identity, it only means that we are not experienced enough yet to leave it; despite its problematic nature, its sighs and tears, we choose it.

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.