Contemplation, Line 6

The final line examines the examiner. Legge's translation shows its subject contemplating his character to see whether it is indeed that of a superior man, and states that he will not fall into error, while the Little Symbolism adds a striking qualification: he cannot even yet let his mind be at rest. The hexagram closes with a person who has passed the test and is still not finished testing.

Standing at the summit of the upper trigram Xun, the wind that moves over the earth, this strong stroke occupies an even place and is incorrect by the standard rule. Top positions commonly mark someone past office, and the difference between this line and the fifth below it is precisely the difference between holding a standard and no longer having a post through which to apply it. What remains is character, examined for its own sake.

Set against the first line, the hexagram has covered the whole distance it set out to travel. It began with a lad looking at a rite he could not read and ends with a man reading himself and declining to be satisfied. The freedom from error the text grants is genuine, and the unrest the commentary describes is not a contradiction of it but the reason it holds. Contemplation ends here as a habit rather than as a conclusion, which is the only form of it that could survive the loss of an office.

Nine at the top is drawn when a querent has reached a point where there is nothing further to observe except themselves, and no office through which to act on what they find. The text grants freedom from error, and the commentary immediately notes that the mind cannot yet be at rest. Both halves are the reading: the conduct is sound and the vigilance continues.

Querents often take the second half as a warning that something is still wrong. It is better read as a description of the disposition the line portrays. A person whose self examination has genuinely become continuous does not arrive at a resting point, and the text presents that restlessness as a feature of the character under examination rather than as evidence against it.

A strong stroke in an even place at the top of the upper trigram Xun has no station left to occupy and nobody left to answer to, which is exactly why the examination has to be self imposed. Readings landing here usually concern retirement, elder standing, or the end of a long undertaking, and the counsel is that a reputation is no substitute for the scrutiny that produced it. Standing earned in the past is not evidence about conduct in the present, and this line asks that the difference be kept in view even when nobody else is checking.