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Refusing the Advice That Would Make You Less Yourself

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Refusing the Advice That Would Make You Less Yourself

Hold the position and change nothing. That is the counsel of this changing line, and it is easy to underrate because it prescribes no action at all: be correct, be firm, and there will be no error. Where most lines in this book describe a movement, this one describes the deliberate absence of one, and the absence is the achievement.

The context makes it harder than it sounds. The position follows immediately on the hexagram's account of undeserved misfortune, and the natural response to being harmed through no fault of one's own is to conclude that one's openness was the problem and to shut it down. The line rules that out. Whatever pressure is currently being applied to make a querent more guarded, more strategic, or simply more like the people around them, the reading treats compliance with it as the actual risk.

A strong stroke standing in an even place at the foot of the upper trigram Qian, this line is out of correspondence with its position by the classical rule and holds firm regardless. That is the picture a reading here offers: someone whose conduct does not suit their circumstances, told without further explanation that the conduct is sound and the circumstances are simply what they are.

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