What Is Left When the Roles Are All Correct

Nine at the top is the closing counsel of The Family and the only line in it addressed to a person rather than to a position. Sincerity held with dignity brings good fortune in the end. A querent drawing it is being told that the arrangement they are asking about will not be settled by any further adjustment of roles, rules or resources, and that what remains is a question about their own conduct.

The two requirements pull against each other on purpose. Sincerity without weight gets overlooked inside a household, and weight without sincerity is the smirking and chattering of the third line inverted into something colder and no better. Holding both at once is the work, and the classic puts the good fortune at the end rather than at once because there is no quick way to establish it. What the line describes is the residue of how somebody has behaved over years.

When the line changes, the upper trigram Xun becomes Kan and the figure becomes After Completion, King Wen 63, every line correctly placed and the classic warning at once that so perfect an arrangement has already begun to decay. Reached from the top of The Family, that is a pointed destination. A household with everybody in the right place has achieved exactly what this hexagram describes, and the next figure says the achievement is the moment vigilance stops being optional.