Small Taming, Line 4

Legge's translation of the fourth line reads that the fourth six, divided, shows its subject possessed of sincerity, so that the danger of bloodshed is averted and his ground for apprehension dismissed, with no mistake resulting. The commentary adds that because he is possessed of sincerity and his apprehension is dismissed, the lines above agree in aim with him.

This is the only yielding line in the entire hexagram, and it is the line that gives Small Taming its name and its whole meaning, a single small, yin force positioned to restrain the much greater strength of the five yang lines that surround it. Sitting at the base of Xun, the upper trigram of Wind, in the fourth place, it occupies the position closest to the ruler at the fifth line and carries real exposure, the kind of position where conflict could easily follow from so slight a force attempting to check so much strength. Sincerity, rather than power, is what lets it succeed.

Legge's commentary is explicit that this line's safety comes from the other lines agreeing with its aim rather than resisting it, which is the entire mechanism by which something small can restrain something great without breaking under the attempt.

Six in the fourth place, as a changing line, is the hinge of the entire hexagram. It is the one yielding line among five yang lines, the small force that gives Small Taming its name, and its message is that sincerity rather than strength is what allows restraint to hold without provoking the danger of open conflict. A reading on this line concerns exactly that kind of position, holding back something much larger than oneself, and succeeding only because trust rather than force is what is offered.

Flipping this single yin line removes the only restraint the hexagram contains. All six lines become yang, and the result is Qian over Qian, pure and unmixed, the hexagram called The Creative. Nothing else in this small slice of the sixty four hexagrams turns on so complete a reversal from a single change: the entire structure of small holding back great simply ceases to exist, and what remains is unchecked creative force with nothing left to restrain it.

Within Small Taming's own movement, the fourth line is the pivot between the untroubled lower trigram and the ruling fifth line above it, the exact point where restraint is applied. A reading that falls here points to a moment when the whole situation depends on this one small, sincere check holding, and its transformation shows plainly what happens the instant that single check is removed.