The 64 hexagrams · Hexagram 19

What does I Ching hexagram 19, Drawing Near, mean?

The judgment

臨：元亨。利貞。至于八月有凶。Drawing near: great success. It pays to hold firm. By the eighth month it turns bad.Zhou Yi 周易, 臨, judgment. Source

The image

澤上有地，臨；君子以教思无窮，容保民无疆。Earth above the lake. The noble person teaches and thinks without limit, and shelters people without bound.Zhou Yi 周易, 臨, image. Source

The six lines

Read from the bottom up. In a cast, only the lines that move are read, and they turn the hexagram into another one. Here they are in the original; a reading translates the moving lines and reads them for the question asked.

1. First line初九：咸臨，貞吉。
2. Second line九二：咸臨，吉无不利。
3. Third line六三：甘臨，无攸利。既憂之，无咎。
4. Fourth line六四：至臨，无咎。
5. Fifth line六五：知臨，大君之宜，吉。
6. Top line上六：敦臨，吉无咎。

The Chinese is the received text of the Zhou Yi; the English is ours. Lines and images that speak of punishments, prisons, illness or money are left out. For entertainment and self-reflection.

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