Here our feelings open to the tao instead of being in it with resentment; we are willing to play the game that small is beautiful instead of always looking for more.

Here, going back is from the point of view of outer identity in which going on means creating more of itself—more clarity of separateness by definition. Here, after hexagram 8, growth takes more subtle forms.

When we create outer activity that the tao (our circumstances) will not support, this makes a stress in our situation. We are attempting to drive our vehicle but there is no driving power.

The spokes of a wheel join the inner and the outer, the hub and the rim. The chariot is separated from the wheel, the rim is separated from its hub, the man is separated from his wife. The inner is separated from the outer here because we identify outwards without awareness that our activity is not supported by the life energies.

If we do not accept the stillness of our outer world (line 3) we itch for activity and lose confidence in following the tao.

Confidence in the inner energies, in the tao. Blood is the life flow and if we have confidence we do not lose this energy needlessly and our fear of not having enough disappears. To a part of ourselves, we may seem to be doing too little, so this is answered by the addition of “no error”.

When we are fully accepting our situation this acceptance remains even when there is no activity; identity is naturally activity-seeking so accepting inactivity involves a faith that activity will return.

We feel the movement of inner energies by direct experience of intuitive feeling, so for this feeling to become more active is a natural outcome of the energies ascending within us.

To be in our feelings is to be genuinely involved, and the sacrifice in which we are involved is of the ownership of the ascent; we recognize that it is the life force which ascends and this is no error.

When ascending energy reaches outer action there is no longer any doubt even in a doubting mind, for there it is for all to see.

The life force moves outwards into the world and spreads out there. When this happens we in identity have a feeling of release, of enlargement we sometimes call our success; even if we do think of it in this narrow way we move with the life force.

When we concern ourselves less with an outer experience which is inactive (line 3 is yang) we are taking it as the manifestation of the life force and not our own creation. In this way we offer something to the whole by sacrificing our attachment.

Mount Chi was in the homeland of King Wên, who is reputed to have put the Chinese oracle images in their present form. If King Wên sacrificed up mount Chi it was on the height of his homeland; innerly the height of our homeland is our mind reality, our separated position or point of view, and giving up our separateness is our ultimate sacrifice and good fortune.

Here we no longer accept the absence of interpretation of the life force (the yang line 2), but the energy cannot ascend unchanged if we interpret it so the ascent is checked.

It is in steps if we do not continue in the way without stopping, as in the case of this line.

When we try to fix our reality, narrow it to something that we can grasp, we feel more secure in our identity but we become more unaware of our actual situation (the movement of the life force).

The energy of the life force ascends in us but we are not aware of it now so it is “dark”.

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.