Approach

Lin is the hexagram of the approaching good: two strong lines entering from below, light growing, spring drawing near. A brighter time is arriving — opportunities for growth and success are imminent, and the powerful of spirit are approaching the world to work on it, as a riverbank stands over the lake it shelters.

The Judgment gives the promise and, in the same breath, the deadline: the eighth month comes, and the light that waxes will wane. This is not a threat but a discipline — joyous times are to be used, fully and without delay, precisely because they are seasonal. Whoever works while it is spring need not fear the autumn.

Approach is double: the great approaching the small, and each of us approaching others. Its manner is the image's inexhaustible generosity — teaching without weariness, tolerating without limit, carrying others as the earth carries the lake. Come closer to people physically and spiritually; be receptive, show respect and consideration, and build the trust from which unity grows.

Within, approach means clarity: seeing through situations to their underlying reality, keeping judgment free of emotional colouring, and letting intuition — not merely external advice — guide action. The turning point rewards a positive, balanced attitude and punishes nothing so quickly as carelessness.

Ascending times ruin people in ways descending times cannot. Watch for the loosening that accompanies ease — discipline surrendered to comfort, modesty to success, alertness to optimism. Watch too for the squandered spring: opportunities deferred as though the season were permanent. The eighth month forgives everything except having done nothing while the light was growing.