The Receptive 坤
The Receptive is the strength of the earth: it carries, nourishes and endures. Follow a good lead with calm devotion and let things ripen in time.
Judgment
The Receptive brings great success if you stay calm and enduring like the steady mare. If you try to lead from the front, you lose your way; if you follow, the way is shown. You find friends in the southwest and lose them in the northeast. Quiet resolve brings good fortune.
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The nature of the earth is to receive and to yield. The wise person keeps a wide heart and carries all things with that same breadth.
What does The Receptive mean?
All six lines are broken. This is a power that receives instead of starting, that carries instead of directing. The earth takes the seed, keeps it, feeds it and helps it grow. It seems to add nothing of its own, yet nothing grows without it. In your situation, too, what is expected of you is not leadership but support: feeding, sustaining and bringing to maturity what has already begun. The earth carries everything and claims nothing for itself. Your strength in this period lies in being able to carry others and make room for them.
This is not passivity. The earth's power lies in its endurance and patience. When you follow a sound direction, a trustworthy person or a solid idea, your work becomes fruitful. If you push ahead on your own, you may lose your way. Be ready to work quietly, since recognition may not come at once. Focus on the work itself instead of on showing yourself. Notice small signs early; thin frost underfoot announces thick ice. As long as you stay calm, open-hearted and steady, this period leaves a quiet but deep abundance behind it. Be like the mare: gentle yet enduring, willing yet tireless. The road may look long, but each step makes the next one easier, and in the end your effort returns to those around you as plenty.
What to do now
Do not try to get ahead; follow a good path faithfully.
Love and relationships
In this period you nourish your relationship by listening and sensing what your partner needs. Seeking harmony is good, but do not erase yourself completely. Patience and tenderness deepen the bond.
Work and money
Working as part of a team, next to a good leader, pays off. It is a good time to finish work someone else started and to strengthen the foundation. Be careful and thrifty with money.
The lines
If a line changed (red) in your reading, read only that line. Lines are counted from the bottom up.
- First line
There is frost underfoot; thick ice will soon follow. Take small signs seriously, because large outcomes begin this way.
- Second line
Straight, square and great. When you act naturally, without forcing or calculating, everything goes well.
- Third line
You keep your worth hidden inside. Do not use your gifts for show; if you serve someone, finish the work without claiming the result, and the end will be good.
- Fourth line
A sack tied shut at the mouth. Now it is right to stay silent and hold back; there will be neither praise nor blame.
- Fifth line
A yellow lower garment. Being modest, measured and sound at heart brings great good fortune.
- Top line
Dragons fight in the open field, and their blood is black and yellow. When the receptive force oversteps its place and tries to dominate, both sides are wounded.
- All six lines
Lasting, unbroken steadiness is favorable. When the receiving power stays firm to the end, it arrives at a great wholeness.
Trigrams
receptive, yielding
receptive, yielding
Related hexagrams
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