The Source from Which Enthusiasm Proceeds, and Friends Gathered as Hair About a Clasp

Everything the hexagram has been circling belongs to this stroke. Legge's translation identifies its subject as the one from whom the harmony and satisfaction come, promises great success, and adds a condition: let him entertain no suspicion, and friends will gather round him. The traditional figure compares that gathering to hair drawn together by a clasp, many separate strands held in one place by a single fastening, which is a precise description of what one strong line does among five yielding ones.

This is the ruling line of Enthusiasm and its only strong stroke, opening the upper trigram Zhen, thunder. It stands in an even place, which the positional rule counts as incorrect, and the mismatch is not treated as a flaw here. A line that generates the movement of an entire hexagram does not depend on the correctness of its seat, and its position immediately below the ruling fifth place gives it the classical character of a minister who supplies the energy an administration runs on.

The warning about suspicion is the load bearing part of the line. Whoever holds a position of this kind can see that others are drawn to them by what they generate, and the natural next thought is to wonder how much of the attachment is to the person and how much to the benefit. Entertaining that thought is exactly what disperses the gathering. The clasp holds only while it is trusted, and the great success promised here is conditional on withholding nothing and doubting no one.