Work on the Decayed, Line 6

Stepping outside the work entirely is the business of the topmost line. Legge's translation shows one who serves neither king nor feudal lord but in a lofty spirit prefers to attend to his own affairs, and the Little Symbolism defends the choice by saying that his aim may be a model to others. After five lines of repairing what a previous generation left broken, the hexagram closes with a figure who declines the commission and is not censured for it.

Standing at the summit of the upper trigram Gen, this strong line occupies an even place and is incorrect by the standard rule, but the top position routinely marks someone past office rather than someone failing at it. Gen is stillness and the mountain, and a strong line at the top of stillness is the natural picture of a person whose authority no longer depends on holding a post.

The line matters because it protects the hexagram from becoming a simple demand for endless corrective labour. Work on the Decayed asks that inherited faults be met, and the fifth line shows that work succeeding. The sixth adds that a life spent cultivating one's own integrity, rather than administering other people's repairs, is a legitimate end to the same movement and can instruct by example alone.

Nine at the top is drawn when a querent is considering stepping back from a corrective role, an office, or a set of obligations others expect them to keep carrying. The line permits it. Serving neither king nor feudal lord is stated without reproach, and the commentary goes further by suggesting that such a withdrawal may itself become a model. Few lines endorse disengagement this plainly, and its appearance in a reading is usually a genuine release rather than a test.

Two qualifications keep it honest. The lofty spirit the text names is a condition and not a description of every departure, so a withdrawal that is really avoidance or resentment does not qualify. And the position is the top of the hexagram, after the fifth line has already brought the repair to praise, which means the release comes at the end of the work rather than instead of it.

A strong stroke in an even place at the summit of the still trigram Gen has no further station to occupy, and readings landing here often concern the passage from doing the work to being consulted about it. The querent is told that their standing does not depend on the post, and that the example of how they conducted the repair will outlast their administration of it.