Lu is the hexagram of conduct. Heaven stands above while the lake, the youngest and most yielding of the figures, moves beneath it — and the old readers saw a person of small standing moving before the great. The judgment gives the book's most famous image: treading on the tail of the tiger, and the tiger does not bite. Conduct, done with courtesy and care, lets a person move safely even where the danger is real. It is the hexagram of manners, and of the courage that good manners make possible.
Considered against one's position among others, the figure teaches the power of the right footstep. The lines distinguish simple conduct from resolute conduct, the smooth level course from the path that requires circumspection. The commentators' point was that the path is not always the same; the wise person matches his step to the ground. To tread the tiger's tail is to go where it is dangerous — and to do so without provoking, so that even a beast has no cause to bite.
For bonds between people, Lu was read as the art of moving well with those above and around us. The third line is blunt: a one-eyed man can see and a lame man can tread, but if either treads on the tiger's tail there is misfortune. The commentators saw here the difference between real capacity and self-regard — the person who overestimates his footing invites the fall. Respect, in this reading, is not fear; it is the clear-eyed measurement of where one stands.
Within a cycle, this figure marks a phase of approach to power, a stretch when the small must move among the great. The image of heaven over the lake is the book's picture of the strong above and the yielding below, in correct relation. The counsel is to advance with propriety — to keep the step light and the manner correct, so that no door closes and no harm is offered.
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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.