Humility

Substance without display.

The situation

You're in a strong position and don't need to advertise it. This is the rare state with no downside.

What it asks of you

Give credit outward. It costs nothing and compounds.

Where it leads

The six lines

1. initial Modest and modest again. Cross the great river on that. 謙謙君子，用涉大川，吉
2. second Modesty that can be heard. This holds. 鳴謙，貞吉
3. third Working hard and saying nothing about it. It comes to a proper end. 勞謙，君子有終，吉
4. fourth Nothing that does not work. Wave the modesty on, keep it moving. 无不利，撝謙
5. fifth Not rich, and neither are the neighbours. Now force may be used. 不富以其鄰，利用侵伐
6. top Modesty that can be heard. Move the army — against your own town first. 鳴謙，利用行師，征邑國

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 000100 — 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 Opportunity. 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 Abundance and Opportunity. The order is not alphabetical or random: the old commentary reads it as a chain, one situation giving rise to the next.