Approach, Line 1

Approach begins with two strong lines rising into four yielding ones, and the first of them does not rise alone. Legge's translation shows its subject advancing in company with the line above, and makes good fortune conditional on firm correctness, while the Little Symbolism grounds that fortune in something simpler still: the will is set on doing what is right. Neither strength nor company is what secures the outcome here. The direction of the intention behind the advance is.

Dui, the marsh, forms the lower trigram, and the earth of Kun lies above it, so the hexagram pictures something drawing near from below to what stands over it. This line is the first stroke of that movement, strong and correctly placed in an odd position, at the point where the approach has begun but has met nothing yet. The two strong lines at the base are the growing element in a figure otherwise composed of yielding, which is why the text watches their conduct so closely.

The condition attached is worth reading precisely. Firm correctness is not the same as force, and the commentary declines to praise the advance itself, praising instead the rightness of what the advance is set on. A movement that begins in company and in the right direction is what this hexagram asks of its opening, and everything the later lines describe depends on it.

Nine at the beginning is drawn when a querent is starting to draw near to something larger than themselves, a position, an institution or a relationship of influence, and is doing so alongside at least one other party rather than in isolation. The text couples good fortune to firm correctness, which makes the line favourable but conditional. The advance succeeds because of how it is conducted, not because the moment happens to be easy.

Strong and correctly placed at the base of the lower trigram Dui, the line has the structural soundness the hexagram's opening needs, and the commentary locates its merit in intention, saying that the will is set on doing what is right. Readings landing here usually concern the earliest stage of an approach, before any of the resistance the third line will meet has appeared, and the counsel is to fix the standard of conduct now while nothing has yet tested it.

The companionship named in the line is not incidental. Approach is a shared movement of two strong lines into yielding territory above, and a querent who tries to advance alone from this position gives up the mutual support the text explicitly credits. Moving with the party whose interests genuinely run alongside one's own is part of what makes this first advance correct.