Vultures have eaten a carcass down to its bare bones, a fitting analogy for hitting bottom and seeing reality without our prejudices and preferences attached. It can take some time for us to get to this point. As Lewis Hyde wrote, "Likes and dislikes are the lapdogs and guard dogs of the ego, busy all the time, panting and barking at the gates of attachment and aversion and thereby narrowing perception and experience." Hexagram 48, The Well, symbolizes what the Buddhists would call 'luminous mind,' a deep source of wisdom, compassion, and insight. It requires attention, patience, and the willingness to enter uncertainty rather than looking for confirmation. D.T. Suzuki once drew a huge circle to represent this spacious, open place, then drew two parallel lines close together in the middle of it. Between these lines were the ego's desires, a small constricted place of what the ego considered acceptable. Sometimes it takes getting down to the bare bones or reality to see beyond those lines.
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