Serving No King or Prince and the Lofty Preference for One's Own Affairs

Stepping outside the work entirely is the business of the topmost line. Legge's translation shows one who serves neither king nor feudal lord but in a lofty spirit prefers to attend to his own affairs, and the Little Symbolism defends the choice by saying that his aim may be a model to others. After five lines of repairing what a previous generation left broken, the hexagram closes with a figure who declines the commission and is not censured for it.

Standing at the summit of the upper trigram Gen, this strong line occupies an even place and is incorrect by the standard rule, but the top position routinely marks someone past office rather than someone failing at it. Gen is stillness and the mountain, and a strong line at the top of stillness is the natural picture of a person whose authority no longer depends on holding a post.

The line matters because it protects the hexagram from becoming a simple demand for endless corrective labour. Work on the Decayed asks that inherited faults be met, and the fifth line shows that work succeeding. The sixth adds that a life spent cultivating one's own integrity, rather than administering other people's repairs, is a legitimate end to the same movement and can instruct by example alone.