The Power of the Great in Decision

The bias is toward action, but only along the established paths — the image is precise. Where the way is genuinely open, move with your full strength. Where it resists, forcing is the trap. Line 1 gives the sharpest warning in the hexagram: strength gathered at the toes, itching to push forward from a low position, brings misfortune — certainly. If your urge is to advance by pressure, the grand premature gesture, the overwhelming campaign, that certainty applies to you. The masterful alternative is line 4: quiet, persevering work at the obstruction rather than assault, until the hedge simply opens — power like the axle of a loaded cart, showing nothing outward yet moving everything. Ask which you're about to do: walk through an opening, or ram a hedge. Only the first is the right use of this power.

If you're stuck, it's usually line 3 — the goat butting the hedge, all momentum and no judgment, entangling further with each charge. The counsel is not to push harder but to stop: untangle the horns and leave the hedge alone. The strong person holds equal power and simply doesn't deploy it this way; they move when the way opens and wait when it doesn't. If the resistance has genuinely ended and you're still braced for combat, that's line 5 — drop the goat-nature, the defensiveness and readiness to fight that have outlived their occasion; releasing it gently costs nothing and frees everything. Waiting here isn't weakness; it's power keeping its manners. The gates that seem shut open cleanest for the one who worked at the axle instead of the wall.