Hexagram 5, Waiting, sets Water (Kan) above Heaven (Qian): the rain clouds gather in the sky but have not yet fallen. The six lines of the hexagram move steadily closer to that withheld water, and the first line stands at the greatest possible remove from it. Legge's 1882 translation places this opening image on open, ordinary ground, away from the crossing point where the real difficulty of the situation would be met. The line text pairs the image with a simple formula: benefit from lasting perseverance, no error in what is otherwise unremarkable conduct. Nothing about the position is dramatic, and that is the point.
A subject or reader at this line has not yet come within reach of the danger the upper trigram represents, so there is no call for any change of habit, no urgent measure, only the ordinary continuation of one's course while circumstances mature elsewhere. The meadow is public, exposed, unshielded ground, yet its very distance from the water is its protection. Read against the other five lines, which draw progressively nearer the crossing until the hexagram's climax at the pit and its uninvited guests, line one establishes the baseline the rest of the hexagram departs from: patience is easiest, and least tested, at the point furthest from what is being waited for.