Neglecting Self

Abandoned by the Numinous Turtle, you say: View our jaws hanging down. Trap! The Way closes. Take this in! You reject your own imagination and creativity and fall into melancholy. Strip all this away. Change the place you find support and intimacy by changing your stand on things. The cause for sorrow will disappear. If you use force in the outer world you will not overcome the opposition you face. Be open and provide what is needed.

初九, 舍爾靈龜, 觀我朶頥, 凶.

You let your magic tortoise go, And look at me with the corners of your mouth drooping. Misfortune. ##### Comments The magic tortoise is a creature possessed of such supernatural powers that it lives on air and needs no earthly nourishment. The image means that a man fitted by nature and position to live freely and independently renounces this self-reliance and instead looks with envy and discontent at others who are outwardly in better circumstances. But such base envy only arouses derision and contempt in those others. This has bad results.