The Mother's Decay and the Firmness Not Carried to Its Limit

A change of quarter in the second line brings an immediate change of method. Legge's translation shows a son dealing with the troubles caused by his mother, and warns that he should not carry his firm correctness to the utmost. Every other line of this hexagram lets the repair proceed at full strength. Here alone the text restrains it, because the relationship through which the correction must pass would not survive being handled with the force the fault might otherwise deserve.

A strong stroke occupies the second, even place, which the standard rule counts incorrect, yet the position is central in the lower trigram Xun, and the Little Symbolism resolves the tension by saying that the line aims at the due mean. Strength is present and is not the difficulty. What the line asks is that strength be measured against the relationship it acts upon rather than against the size of the fault.

Xun is the gentle and penetrating trigram, wind that enters everywhere without breaking anything, and this is where the hexagram draws on that quality most clearly. The mountain above still holds the work steady. The line's contribution is the recognition that some decay is repaired by patient entry over time, and would only be hardened by a demand for immediate correction.