EN (English)
䷒
Hexagram 19 of 64
Approach
臨 · Lín
Two strong lines rising at the bottom of the figure, like the light half of the year returning. The hexagram describes a season of increase and names the month it ends.
approach
growth
teaching
the season ahead
- King Wen number
- 19 of 64
- Above
- ☷ Kūn · Earth
- Below
- ☱ Duì · Lake
- Composition
- Earth over Lake
- Lines, bottom to top
- Solid · solid · broken · broken · broken · broken
- Chinese
- 臨 · Lín
The Judgment
The source. It gets through. It rewards holding to the course. When the eighth month comes, there will be misfortune.
Uniquely specific. The good period is real, it is measurable, and the classic tells you now that it turns.
The Image
The earth above the lake: Approach. So the noble person is inexhaustible in teaching and thought, and without limit in tolerating and protecting people.
Approach is read as coming toward people. Both instructions are about the capacity to keep giving attention.
What it means
Lin has two yang lines pressing up from the bottom, and the classic reads them as the returning light. It belongs to the sequence of seasonal hexagrams, and its position corresponds to the twelfth month, with the year opening out ahead of it.
That is why the Judgment does something it does nowhere else: it gives an expiry date. When the eighth month comes there will be misfortune, because by then the yang lines will have passed their peak and the figure will have inverted into hexagram 20. Good fortune is granted and timed in the same breath.
The lines are among the most favourable in the book, and they distinguish kinds of approach. Advancing in company is good twice over. Advancing on charm alone is not, and the third line's remedy is remarkably light: be uneasy about it, and the blame lifts. Wise approach at the fifth line means knowing what to hand to other people. Generous approach at the top means coming back down when you no longer have to.
The Image reads the whole thing as pedagogy: an inexhaustible willingness to teach, and a limitless tolerance for the people being taught.
In a reading
Approach as an answer describes a favourable period that is opening rather than closing. Advance, teach, take on responsibility, draw closer to whatever the matter concerns.
Its one condition is time. The hexagram states plainly that the season turns, so the counsel is to do the work now and to build something that outlasts the conditions. Charm alone will not carry it.
The six lines
Read a line's text only when the cast made it a moving line. They are listed from the top of the figure down, the way the hexagram is drawn.
-
Six at the top
Generous approach. Good fortune, no blame.
Coming back to help from a position that no longer needs to. Substantial and unforced.
-
Six in the fifth place
Wise approach. This is what suits a great ruler. Good fortune.
Advancing by knowing when to delegate and whom to trust. The ruling line.
-
Six in the fourth place
Approach that arrives all the way. No blame.
Complete contact, without shortcuts. The line reaching down to the beginning of the figure.
-
Six in the third place
Comfortable approach. Nothing furthers. Be troubled about it and there is no blame.
Advancing on charm. The line offers an exit that consists entirely of noticing the problem.
-
Nine in the second place
Approach together. Good fortune, and nothing that does not further.
The same movement, now unqualified. One of the most favourable line texts in the book.
-
Nine at the beginning
Approach together. Steadfastness brings good fortune.
Advancing in company at the very bottom. Nobody is doing this alone.
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