Coming to Meet is the structural reverse of Breakthrough — here a single yielding line appears beneath five strong ones. The text treats this as a moment worth watching closely.
The structure: Heaven over Wind
Wind below, heaven above. Something subtle moving beneath a powerful exterior — influence entering where the surface looks solid.
The Judgment
Coming to Meet. The maiden is powerful. One should not marry such a maiden.
The judgment is unusually blunt, and it is worth noting what it is not saying. The warning is about an influence that grows through access rather than strength — which is a structural observation, not a claim about people.
The Image
Under heaven, wind: the image of Coming to Meet. Thus does the prince act when he disseminates his commands and proclaims them to the four corners of heaven.
The instruction turns the structure to a different use: what reaches everywhere is what moves quietly, like wind.
The lines
- Line 1 — It must be checked with a brake of bronze. Perseverance brings good fortune.
- Line 2 — There is a fish in the tank. No blame. But it does not further the guest.
- Line 3 — There is no skin on his thighs, and walking comes hard. If one is mindful of the danger, no great mistake is made.
- Line 4 — No fish in the tank. This leads to misfortune.
- Line 5 — A melon covered with willow leaves. Hidden lines. Then it drops down to one from heaven.
- Line 6 — He comes to meet with his horns. Humiliation. No blame.
The fish recurs through lines 2 and 4 with opposite outcomes, which is the hexagram's way of saying that the same encounter can be contained or lost depending on whether you notice it in time.
In practice
Read this as a hexagram about attention to small things, particularly at the point where they first have access.
The single line below
What makes this hexagram structurally tense is position, not number. One yielding line at the bottom, beneath five strong ones, is the point where influence enters unnoticed.
The judgment's bluntness follows from that. The text is not describing a moral failing but a mechanical one: what arrives quietly is hard to refuse because it never presents itself as a decision.
What to watch
The practical instruction is not refusal but notice. The hexagram concerns what has not yet declared itself, and attention taken early is worth considerably more than resistance applied late.