Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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Sweetness Without Substance and the Anxiety That Repairs It

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Sweetness Without Substance and the Anxiety That Repairs It

Content drops out of the approach at the third line. Legge's translation shows one well pleased to advance whose action will nonetheless be in no way advantageous, then adds that if he becomes anxious about it there will be no error. The Little Symbolism gives both halves their cause: the position is not appropriate to him, and his error will not be continued. Pleasure taken in advancing, unaccompanied by anything solid, is the fault, and recognising it is the whole of the remedy.

Dui is the trigram of pleasure and the marsh, and this line sits at its top, where that quality is most concentrated and least anchored. A yielding stroke occupies an odd place, incorrect by the standard rule, and stands at the threshold where the lower trigram gives way to the earth of Kun above. An approach made from this station has the manner of advancing without the strength that the two lines below supplied.

What redeems the line is unusual for how little it asks. No corrective action is prescribed, no delay and no reversal. The text requires only that the emptiness of the advance be genuinely felt, and the commentary confirms that the error stops there. Approach conducted on charm alone gains nothing, but it costs nothing lasting either, provided the person making it notices.

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