EN (English)
䷄
Hexagram 5 of 64
Waiting
需 · Xū
Clouds gathered in the sky with the rain not yet fallen. The hexagram is about waiting done well, which the classic treats as an active skill rather than an absence of action.
waiting
timing
nourishment
confidence
- King Wen number
- 5 of 64
- Above
- ☵ Kǎn · Water
- Below
- ☰ Qián · Heaven
- Composition
- Water over Heaven
- Lines, bottom to top
- Solid · solid · solid · broken · solid · broken
- Chinese
- 需 · Xū
The Judgment
You are sincere. Radiant success. Steadfastness brings good fortune. It helps to cross the great water.
Waiting here is not doubt. The confidence is already established, which is precisely what makes the delay bearable and the eventual crossing possible.
The Image
Clouds rise up to heaven: Waiting. So the noble person eats and drinks and is glad.
The most cheerful instruction in the book. If the rain is coming and nothing can hurry it, the correct use of the interval is to live.
What it means
Xu puts the creative trigram underneath the danger of water: full strength facing a risk it cannot yet cross. What the hexagram describes is the interval, and the classic's position is that the interval has a right way to be spent.
The Image is unexpectedly warm. Clouds are massing, rain will fall, and until it does the noble person eats, drinks and enjoys themselves. Waiting is not endured here, it is inhabited. Anxiety adds nothing to a process whose timing is not yours to set.
The lines measure the distance to the danger, and they are unusually literal about it: meadow, sand, mud, blood, and finally the pit. The further out you are, the less is required. In the mud you are already too close, and the classic says so bluntly, because waiting in an exposed position stops being patience and starts attracting trouble.
The fifth line is the hexagram's answer: wine and food in the middle of it all. Composure at the point of maximum pressure, which the classic reads not as denial but as the practical form of confidence.
In a reading
Waiting as an answer means the situation will move and not on your schedule. The hexagram is broadly favourable; the crossing does happen.
What it asks is where you are standing while you wait. Step back from an exposed position, keep your ordinary life going, refuse to be drawn by minor provocation, and stay ready. If unexpected help arrives, receive it well even if it arrives in a form you would not have chosen.
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.
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Six at the top
Falling into the pit. Three uninvited guests arrive. Treat them with respect and in the end good fortune.
Help in an unwelcome shape. The line turns on whether you can be gracious to what you did not ask for.
-
Nine in the fifth place
Waiting with wine and food. Steadfastness brings good fortune.
The centre of the storm, handled with composure. The ruling line, and the Image's instruction made concrete.
-
Six in the fourth place
Waiting in blood. Get out of the pit.
The danger has arrived. The line does not moralise; it says leave.
-
Nine in the third place
Waiting in the mud. It brings the raiders on.
Too close. Waiting in an exposed position is not patience any more, it is an invitation.
-
Nine in the second place
Waiting on the sand. A little talk. In the end, good fortune.
Closer to the water. Minor friction and gossip start; neither is worth answering.
-
Nine at the beginning
Waiting in the meadow. It helps to keep to what lasts. No blame.
Far from the danger. Nothing is required yet except keeping your routine intact.
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