Hexagram 10 changing to 61: Treading to Inner Truth

Where it starts: 10 Treading

Careful conduct in a delicate situation: treading on the tiger's tail, and not being bitten. Lake below, heaven above: the gentle and cheerful beneath the strong. Treading is about conduct, about how to move through a situation where a wrong step has real consequences. The tradition's image is of stepping on a tiger's tail without being bitten, and the way that is achieved is with courtesy, care and good humour rather than with force or fear. The reading says you are close to something powerful or dangerous and that your behaviour, moment to moment, decides whether it turns on you. Correct manners, plainly kept, carry you through.

Where it goes: 61 Inner Truth

Wind over the lake, an empty centre: sincerity so complete that it moves pigs and fishes, and crosses the great water. Lake below, wind above: wind moving the surface of the water, the influence of the invisible on the visible. The hexagram's shape has two yielding lines at its centre, an emptiness in the middle, which the tradition reads as a heart free of prejudice and open to truth. Inner Truth describes sincerity that reaches even the least receptive, pigs and fishes, and that makes large undertakings possible. The judgement promises good fortune and the crossing of the great water. The image is of the wise person discussing criminal cases in order to delay executions: truth that leans toward understanding. The reading says the situation is decided by inner sincerity, and that the empty centre is not weakness but the space through which truth passes.

The lines that move

1. Line 4

   Treading on the tiger's tail with caution and care. In the end, good fortune.

   The dangerous step taken by someone who knows it is dangerous and moves with full attention. The tradition promises success to this combination of courage and care. If you must take the dangerous step, take it deliberately and carefully.

What is changing. The situation of Treading is moving toward Inner Truth. Behave with care and courtesy, especially toward whatever is stronger than you. As the change completes: Keep the centre open and sincere; truth held that way reaches everyone and carries the large undertaking.

love and relationships

Now: A delicate situation with someone whose reaction you cannot predict. Tact matters more than truth-telling for its own sake. Be kind, be careful, and do not test the tiger to see if it bites. Then: The reading is about trust: complete sincerity, an open centre, and the influence that has on the other person. Say what is true, without agenda. The lines warn against sincerity that depends on the other's response, and against confidence in the wrong person.

career

Now: You are dealing with a powerful person or a dangerous situation. The reading favours impeccable conduct: polite, correct, unhurried, never presumptuous. Know your place in the order and act from it. Then: Influence through honesty and openness rather than position. People are moved by someone whose centre they can see into. The reading supports large undertakings founded on trust and warns against the confidence that is only ambition.

money

Now: Proceed with care in a situation where a misstep is costly. Read the terms. Do not provoke a stronger party. Modest, correct dealings get through where clever ones get bitten. Then: Dealings founded on trust, transparently. The reading is favourable to ventures built on sincere agreement and warns against trusting the wrong party, which the fifth and sixth lines describe.

decisions

Now: Choose the option that lets you move carefully and correctly. If the decision requires you to step on the tiger, do it with full attention and good manners, not bravado. Then: Decide from your own inner truth, with an open mind and no prejudice. The reading supports the large decision when it rests on sincerity, and it asks you to examine whether your confidence is real or merely wishful.