The trigram above – LI – the Clinging, Flame The trigram below – K’AN – the Abysmal, Water
General: You will need to be especially vigilant in the last few yards to success.
Love: If you wish to achieve your goal within your relationship, you must not allow yourself to be distracted.
Business: Focus on achieving your business goals and do not allow yourself to be distracted.
Personal: Do not allow pride or impatience to get in the way of the success that is so near.
This hexagram indicates a time when the transition from disorder to order is not yet completed. The change is indeed prepared for, since all the lines in the upper trigram are in relation to those in the lower. However, they are not yet in their places. While te preceding hexagram offers an analogy to autumn, which forms the transition from summer to winter, this hexagram presents a parallel to spring, which leads out of winter’s stagnation into the fruitful time of summer. With this hopeful outlook the Book of Changes comes to its close.
The conditions are difficult. The task is great and full of responsibility. it is nothing less than that of leading the world out of confusion back to order. but it is a task that promises success, because there is a goal that can unite the forces now tending in different directions. At first, however, one must move warily, like an old fox walking over ice.
The caution of a fox walking over ice is proverbial in China. His ears are constantly alert to the cracking of the ice, as he carefully and circumspectly searches out the safest spots. A young fox who as yet has not acquired this caution goes ahead boldly, and it may happen that he falls in and gets his tail wet when he is almost across the water. then of course his effort has been all in vain. Accordingly, in times “before completion,” deliberation and caution are the prerequisites of success.
