Approach

Drawing near with authority.

The situation

You're stepping into influence over something or someone. Generous now, and it lasts; heavy-handed, and it curdles.

What it asks of you

Lead by teaching. And note that this window doesn't stay open forever.

Where it leads

The six lines

1. initial Approaching together. This holds. 咸臨，貞吉
2. second Approaching together. Nothing here does not work. 咸臨，吉无不利
3. third Approaching sweetly. Nothing comes of it. Once you worry about that, nothing goes wrong. 甘臨，无攸利。既憂之，无咎
4. fourth Arriving all the way. Nothing goes wrong. 至臨，无咎
5. fifth Approaching with what you know. This is what suits a ruler. 知臨，大君之宜，吉
6. top Approaching thickly, with weight behind it. 敦臨，吉无咎

The line texts are the oldest layer of the book. They are pictures, not instructions, and they are meant to be held against your own situation rather than decoded.

How this one is built

Written out as six lines, bottom to top, this pattern is 000011 — a solid line is 1, a broken line is 0. Every relationship above is arithmetic on those six digits, not interpretation: reverse the order and you get the other side, flip every digit and you get the opposite reading, take the middle four and you get what sits underneath. Anyone can check the result, which is what separates a structure from a fortune.

The sequence is built the same way. The sixty-four are arranged in thirty-two pairs, and turned upside down it becomes Reflection. The rule holds for all thirty-two pairs without exception — twenty-eight joined by reversal, four by inversion.

In the received order it sits between Repair and Reflection. The order is not alphabetical or random: the old commentary reads it as a chain, one situation giving rise to the next.