A querent who draws this changing line is being told that the way through a risky undertaking runs downward rather than upward. The counsel is to reduce what must be defended: fewer claims, fewer titles insisted on, fewer expectations placed on how the effort will be seen. Crossing the great stream stands for a commitment that cannot be reversed once begun, and the line promises good fortune to whoever enters it carrying as little as possible.
This is the least prominent position in the hexagram, and the reading treats that as an advantage rather than a limitation. Someone at the bottom of a situation has nothing to protect and so nothing that can be taken, which is exactly the condition the line describes as sufficient for the crossing. Practically the advice is to accept a junior role, an unglamorous task or a starting position without negotiating it upward, because the freedom that comes with it is the resource the line is pointing at.
The one thing the line warns against, by implication rather than statement, is humility performed for effect. Modesty added to modesty is a private adjustment, not a posture adopted where it will be noticed. A reading landing here often marks the earliest stage of something long, and the querent is told that beginning it without status is not a disadvantage to be corrected but the specific condition under which it can succeed.