Holding Together, Line 4

Where the third line attached badly, the fourth attaches well and does so in the open. Legge's translation shows the subject seeking union with the party beyond himself, with good fortune attending firm correctness, and the small commentary identifies that party without ambiguity: the line follows the ruler above it. There is no concealment in the gesture and no hedging. The attachment is directed upward, past the crowded lower half of the figure, to the single firm line that gives the hexagram its center.

Correctly placed as a yielding line in an even position, the fourth opens the upper trigram Kan and stands immediately beneath the fifth. That nearness is what makes open allegiance the right move rather than a risky one. A line at this height that hesitated, or that looked sideways for allies among its equals, would be read as building a faction; this line instead commits directly to the center and is credited with good fortune for it.

The contrast with the second line is deliberate and the two are usually read together. The second attaches from within, at a distance, through correspondence. The fourth attaches from outside itself, at close range, through proximity and choice. Holding Together needs both. A union that works only in private conviction never becomes a public order, and the fourth line is where personal loyalty becomes visible enough to be counted on.

Six in the fourth place advises a querent to declare an allegiance rather than to keep it quiet. As a changing line it concerns support given to a leader, an institution or a shared undertaking that stands above the querent's own position, and its commentary is specific: the good fortune comes from following what is above, openly, with firm correctness. Discretion is not the virtue here. A commitment made in the open is what this line rewards.

Flipping the yielding stroke to firm changes the upper trigram Kan into Dui, lake, and lake over earth gives Gathering Together, King Wen 45, a hexagram whose whole subject is people assembling around a center. The transformation is unusually harmonious with its source. Where Holding Together describes attachment one line at a time, Gathering Together describes the assembly that results, and open allegiance at this height is precisely the act that turns scattered attachment into a gathering.

A reading landing here is favorable and asks for visibility. The querent is counseled to align with the legitimate center of the situation rather than with peers or rivals at their own level, and to let that alignment be known. What follows from it, in the figure this line produces, is not isolation but company: others assemble where a clear center has been publicly acknowledged.