Lin is the hexagram of drawing near. The earth bends low over the lake, and the old readers saw a great lord stooping toward his people — high ground reaching down to what is below it. The judgment speaks of supreme success, and the classical text adds a shadow: there is misfortune when the eighth month comes. The point is not pessimism but timing — every approach has its season, and what rises must in time turn back. The wise person uses the moment while it is full.
Turned toward a calling or a position, the figure describes the approach of influence and responsibility. The lines give a whole scale of it — joint approach, comfortable approach, complete approach — each naming a way of coming close to a task or a duty. The old readers' warning was against the comfortable middle, the approach that costs nothing. Real approach, they taught, means drawing near with intent, not drifting in and hoping to be seen.
For the bonds that hold people together, Lin was read as the gesture of a person who makes the first move. The final line, 'greathearted approach,' closes the figure on the note the whole text builds toward: approaching another with an open, generous spirit is what brings good fortune without blame. The commentators saw in the earth bending toward the lake the image of a person who lowers pride to reach someone — and finds that the reaching itself is the bond.
Within the flow of a cycle, Lin marks a phase of ascension, the stretch when conditions are rising and everything leans toward growth. The image of the earth over the lake is the book's picture of abundance approaching from above, ready to pour itself out. The counsel is to meet the rising tide deliberately — to advance while the season favours it, knowing that no rising lasts forever.
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Cast the I Ching Oracle → Free · No sign-up · 3,000-year-old methodSource: Judgment and line texts follow the Wilhelm/Baynes rendering of the Yijing.