Meaning
臨 means to approach, to look down upon, and to take charge of: the earth standing above the marsh looks down on it, and the water comes up to meet the land. In the figure two whole lines have come in at the bottom under four broken ones, and the tradition reads that as growth on its way. The Judgment promises great progress with firmness, and then adds a sentence about time, in Legge's words "In the eighth month there will be evil." Later readers take it as a reminder that every rise of yang turns back into decline.
The Image draws a lesson of care without limit: the superior man's teaching never runs dry, and his protection of people has no bounds. Among the Han calendar's twelve hexagrams 臨 is the twelfth lunar month, with yang already two lines deep after the turn at the solstice. In our own reading, the hexagram is about drawing near with responsibility: advance that comes with the duty of looking after what one approaches.
The lines
The two whole lines advance together, the first and second in company, and both meet good fortune. The third is pleased to advance and gains nothing by it, though it avoids error once it grows anxious about its course. The upper lines describe kinds of approach: the fourth "advancing in the highest mode", in Legge's words; the fifth the approach of wisdom that befits a ruler; the top line the approach of honesty and generosity.
Its pair is 觀, hexagram 20, the same figure upside down; within it lies 復, hexagram 24, and every line flipped gives 遯, hexagram 33.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 臨 when the year, month and day leave 0, counted as 8 on eight, which puts 坤 earth above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 2, which puts 兌 lake below. Which line moves depends on what the whole total leaves on six, and each line turns the figure into a different hexagram:
- Line 1 (初九) moving: becomes 7 師 Shī, The Army
- Line 2 (九二) moving: becomes 24 復 Fù, Return
- Line 3 (六三) moving: becomes 11 泰 Tài, Flow
- Line 4 (六四) moving: becomes 54 歸妹 Guī Mèi, The Younger Sister Weds
- Line 5 (六五) moving: becomes 60 節 Jié, Measure
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 41 損 Sǔn, Decrease
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 24 復 Fù, Return. Everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour has the same cast, so the figure describes a moment, not a person.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Trigram virtues (Shuogua, chapter 7)
- 兌 pleased, open below; 坤 yielding, compliant above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- youngest daughter below, mother above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- mouth and sheep below; belly and ox above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Metal below, Earth above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Month in the Han calendars (sovereign hexagram)
- The twelfth lunar month (丑), with two yang lines sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 20 觀 Guān, Looking Out; every line flipped: 33 遯 Dùn, Retreat sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 19, from 307.625° to 313.25° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Drawing Near: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 臨 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “In the eighth month there will be evil.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- The earth above a marsh; the superior man's purposes of instruction are inexhaustible and his support of the people without limit.
- The Han calendars (1st century BCE)
- The hexagram of the twelfth lunar month, the month of 丑: yang growing from below.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 坤 above when the year, month and day leave 0 on eight, 兌 below when the same total with the hour leaves 2.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 19 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Earth over the lake: something good comes near and grows, and the one above oversees it with care; the rise has its season and turns, so this is the time to act.
Claims about it
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Gate 19 of Human Design, at 307.625° to 313.25° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 19.
falseWhat the record shows: The wheel is Shao Yong's circle rotated by Ra Uru Hu in 1987 to 1989 so that hexagram 41 starts at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we found puts the hexagrams on degrees of the zodiac.
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Being born under 臨 Lín fixes a person's character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A modern reading with no source in the tradition. The Zhouyi has no birth hexagram; the cast reads a figure, not a person, and everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour shares it.
