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Hexagram 19 · Lín

Approach

臨 · lín
Favorable advance; act while the door stands open.
Kūn · Earth
above
Duì · Lake
below

Core Meaning

The Judgment: Approach: supreme success through steadfastness. But when the eighth month comes, there will be misfortune — the favorable time does not last forever.
The Image: The earth rises above the lake, embracing it. So the wise person is inexhaustible in teaching, and shelters the people without limit.

Earth rising over the lake, shore embracing water: Lín is approach — a favorable force drawing near, a season of growth opening, influence arriving like early spring.

Its counsel is to meet the opening actively and wholeheartedly while it lasts — the Judgment's eighth-month warning is not pessimism but honesty about seasons. Approach greatly: teach without tiring, tolerate without limit, and act while the door stands open.

Approach in Your Question

Love & Relationships

Lín is warmly favorable for love: someone or something approaches — deeper commitment, reconciliation, a new closeness. Meet it with the hexagram's great-heartedness: generous, present, undefended. Its seasonal honesty applies gently — openings of the heart have their hour; respond while the spring is actually here.

Career & Money

Professionally, Lín marks arriving opportunity and rising influence — the promotion window, the receptive audience, the growth quarter. Move with joint effort and full presence; the comfortable, careless approach its third line describes squanders springs. Leaders take note of the fifth line: wise approach means knowing what to delegate.

Personal Growth

Inwardly, Lín is the approach you make toward your own life — the difference between attending to it and merely occupying it. Its practice is inexhaustibility in the two directions the Image names: teaching (what you give) and tolerance (what you make room for). Approach yourself the same way: generously, and now.

The Six Lines

A line speaks only when it is a changing line in your own casting.

Line 1
Approaching together with others of influence. Steadfastness brings good fortune.
Line 2
Approaching together: good fortune. Everything prospers.
Line 3
A comfortable, careless approach gains nothing. But one who recognizes the slackness and grieves over it removes the blame.
Line 4
Approach wholly, with full presence and openness. No blame.
Line 5
The approach of wisdom: knowing how to delegate is the mark of a great leader. Good fortune.
Line 6
Greathearted approach: a generous turning toward those below. Good fortune, no blame.

Related Hexagrams

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