Standstill, Line 4

Standstill turns at its fourth line, and the text marks the turn by a change in what is possible rather than by any improvement in conditions. Legge's translation shows the subject acting in accordance with the ordination of Heaven and committing no error, with companions coming to share in the resulting happiness. The small commentary states the change directly: the purpose of the line's mind can now be carried into effect. Through the three yielding lines below, intention had nowhere to go. Here it does.

Firm in an even position at the base of the upper trigram Qian, the line is incorrectly placed by the letter of the rule, and the text answers that objection with the source of its authority. What justifies the action is not the correctness of the position but the mandate under which it is taken, which comes from above rather than from the line's own initiative. Acting on one's own account at this height, in this hexagram, would be premature; acting under commission is not.

The companions matter as much as the mandate. The first line's tangled grass roots showed capable people withdrawing together as the obstruction closed; the fourth shows them reassembling as it begins to open, drawn by an action that is legitimate rather than by any promise of advantage. Standstill has not ended at this line, and the text does not claim that it has. It records the first movement the closure can no longer prevent.

Nine in the fourth place tells a querent that action has become possible again, on one condition: that it is undertaken under a warrant that does not originate with the querent. As a changing line it commonly concerns a commission, an instruction, or a legitimate obligation that authorizes a move which self-initiated action could not justify. The line adds that others will come and share in what follows, so the move is not made alone.

Flipping this firm stroke to yielding changes the upper trigram Qian into Xun, wind, and wind over earth gives Contemplation, King Wen 20, a hexagram of observing before acting and of being observed while doing so. The transformation reads as a check on timing. Softening this position returns the situation to watching, which is what the whole lower half of Standstill has been doing, and the figure it produces makes clear that the authority to act is the only thing separating this line from more waiting.

A reading landing here is cautiously favorable and asks the querent to be precise about their warrant. The counsel is to move where a genuine mandate exists and to keep watching where it does not, since the same position that becomes effective action under commission becomes mere contemplation without one. Companions arrive in the first case. In the second there is nothing yet for them to join.