Advance Checked at the Outset, and the Generous Mind

Progress begins by being stopped. Legge's translation shows the subject wishing to advance and at the same time kept back, directs him to be firm and correct for good fortune, and adds that if trust is not reposed in him he should maintain a large and generous mind and there will be no error. The commentary on the image explains the check by saying that he has not yet received an official charge, and that alone he pursues the correct course.

The whole figure is the bright sun coming forth above the earth, and its judgement describes a prince rewarded with horses and received three times in a single day. That is advancement recognised at the highest level available. This line stands at the other end of it, a yielding stroke at the very bottom of the earth trigram Kun, with no appointment, no standing and nothing to point at as evidence of anything.

What the text supplies in place of a remedy is a manner. Being trusted is not yet available, so the counsel concerns how to be untrusted well: generously, without the resentment that would make the distrust look justified after the fact. The Great Symbolism has the superior man making his own bright virtue more brilliant, which is work done on oneself rather than on the situation, and at this station that is the only work there is to do.