Approach (Lin)

Approach (Lin), Hexagram XIX, describes authority moving toward those it governs, not merely holding power at a distance. Its promise of great progress is qualified by a warning: advancement is temporary, so success depends on firm correctness, caution, and the wise use of capable agents.

Meaning and Structure

The hexagram’s name is not simply a declaration of greatness. The commentary distinguishes Lin from an earlier interpretation that took the word to mean “great”; Lin instead signifies authority approaching in order to inspect, comfort, or rule. The figure gives that movement a visible form: two strong, undivided lines advance upon the four weak lines above them. Their strength makes their action powerful and successful, but the reading immediately limits that promise by insisting on rectitude and caution as conditions of legitimate advance.

The text’s judgment accordingly joins opportunity to impermanence. Lin indicates great progress and success, and says that firm correctness is advantageous; it also warns that the eighth month brings evil. The commentary explains that the advancing power will decay before long. Progress is therefore not a permanent possession or an excuse for unchecked expansion: the very figure that promises effective movement also marks its decline as a condition to be anticipated.

Authority and Its Agents

The commentary reads the central positions as a model of political relationship. The fifth line occupies the ruler’s place. Though weak, it is central and correlates with the strong, central second line. This pairing represents authority that distrusts its own strength and employs fit agents—a characteristic, in the commentator’s account, of the wise ruler. The ruler’s weakness is not treated as incapacity; joined to sound judgment and competent service, it becomes a reason to entrust work to others.

The sixth line, at the top of the trigram Kun, represents docility at its height. It does not correlate with the second line, yet the commentary describes Yin as seeking Yang, emphatically so in this configuration. This account connects the final position to the hexagram’s larger pattern of approach: relations among the lines shape the meaning of action, and the final line’s characteristic and outcome follow from its place in that pattern.

The Reading of the Lines

The first two lines make approach reciprocal. The undivided first line advances in company with the second, and firm correctness brings good fortune. The undivided second line likewise advances in company with the first; its advance is fortunate and advantageous in every way. Their parallel wording gives the initial movement a quality of mutual support rather than solitary conquest.

The broader rules of interpretation help explain why such relationships matter. Lines are not read in isolation: their positions, qualities, and correspondences alter their significance, while the hexagram’s name and subject determine how each line applies. The commentary’s account of Lin accordingly moves between the whole figure’s advancing strength and particular relations within it, especially the ruler’s connection to an able subordinate and the upper line’s distinctive docility.

Political Significance and Limits

Lin’s political force lies in combining access with restraint. Authority approaches in order to inspect, comfort, or govern, while the central ruler makes its power effective by employing suitable agents. Yet the favorable movement is bounded by the demand for rectitude and by the forecast of decline. The figure offers no warrant for treating success as self-justifying or endless; its counsel is to act well while circumstances permit and to remain alert to their change.

The book’s wider interpretive method reinforces that caution. Its hexagram judgments and line statements are symbolic rather than literal instructions, and their application depends on the figure, the line positions, and the relations among them. In Lin, the result is a compact account of successful government: authority advances, works through capable service, and must remember that favorable conditions do not last.