临 Approach
Upper trigram: Earth (the earth) · Lower trigram: Lake (the lake)
A favorable approach — oversee with care and generosity.
Modern interpretation
Opportunity is approaching, and so is responsibility. Mentor, manage, or welcome what is coming with generosity and watchfulness. Spring is here: plant deliberately, tend patiently, and the harvest follows.
The Judgment · 卦辞
元亨，利贞。至于八月有凶。
“Lin (indicates that under the conditions supposed in it) there will be great progress and success, while it will be advantageous to be firmly correct. In the eighth month there will be evil.” — James Legge, The Yî King (1882)
The six lines · 爻辞
Read from the bottom line upward. Each line pairs the received Chinese text with Legge's English translation.
咸临，贞吉。
“The first line, undivided, shows its subject advancing in company (with the subject of the second line). Through his firm correctness there will be good fortune.”
咸临，吉，无不利。
“The second line, undivided, shows its subject advancing in company (with the subject of the first line). There will be good fortune ; (advancing) will be in every way advantageous.”
甘临，无攸利；既忧之，无咎。
“The third line, divided, shows one well pleased (indeed) to advance, (but whose action) will be in no way advantageous. If he become anxious about it (however), there will be no error.”
至临，无咎。
“The fourth line, divided, shows one advancing in the highest mode. There will be no error.”
知临，大君之宜，吉。
“The fifth line, divided, shows the advance of wisdom, such as befits the great ruler. There will be good fortune.”
敦临，吉，无咎。
“The sixth line, divided, shows the advance of honesty and generosity. There will be good fortune, and no error.”
About changing lines
In a real I Ching reading, hexagrams are built by casting coins or yarrow stalks six times, bottom line first. Some lines come out “old” (unstable) — an old yin or old yang flips into its opposite, producing a second hexagram that shows where the situation is heading. The changing lines are the moving parts of your answer: read their individual line statements above, and they point to the direction of change.
Ask a question and cast the coins — free, with a plain-English interpretation grounded in the classical text.
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