Return, Line 1

Return opens with its one strong line at the very bottom of the figure, and the text attached to it concerns distance rather than fault. Legge's translation describes returning from an error that has not extended far, and finds in that no occasion for repentance and great good fortune besides. The error is granted; what the line measures is how far it was carried before the turn was made. A short straying corrected at once leaves nothing behind it, and the whole of this hexagram rests on that observation, that a fault has a size and its size is mostly a matter of time.

The image behind the figure is the winter solstice, thunder buried in the earth, the first light stirring beneath five dark lines. This opening line is that light. It is the only yang stroke present and it stands correctly in an odd place, at the foot of the lower trigram Zhen, movement itself. Nothing has yet grown from it, which is exactly why it is favourable: the returning impulse is small, unopposed, and still entirely within the control of whoever feels it.

Placed at the beginning of the sequence, this line sets the standard the remaining five are measured against. Later lines return admirably, repeatedly, alone, and nobly, and the last fails to return at all. Each is a variation on the distance named here. Great good fortune in this position is not a reward for virtue but the plain consequence of turning back early, while the road home is still short.

Someone drawing this changing line is being told that the mistake in question is recoverable and that the window for recovering it cheaply is open now. The reading does not deny the error; it locates it. Something has gone slightly wrong, recently, and has not yet been built upon, defended in public, or allowed to harden into a habit. Turning around at this point costs very little, and the promise of great good fortune attaches to the speed of the turn rather than to any merit in the one turning.

What makes this line unusually clear in practice is that it asks for no repentance. Legge's rendering says there will be no occasion for it, which removes the temptation to spend energy on remorse instead of correction. The counsel is practical: undo the small thing, say the short sentence, return the borrowed item, withdraw the half committed promise, and let that be the end of it.

The line sits alone as the single strong stroke beneath five yielding ones, which in a reading often marks an impulse felt privately and not yet visible to anyone else. That privacy is an advantage. A correction made before others have noticed the fault requires no explanation and creates no reputation to defend. The querent is advised to act on the impulse while it is still theirs alone to act on, because every later line in this hexagram describes a turn that has become harder.