Six Doors · No. 3

第3卦屯 Zhūn · Difficulty at the Beginning

Essence: Birth pangs of a venture; gather help and build order.

Judgment

You are in the tangled early stage, where potential is enormous but nothing is sorted. Resist expanding; secure your base and recruit capable allies first. What chaos needs is structure, not speed.

Sixty-four hexagrams, six doors each

Trigrams

Upper

坎 Water

water

Lower

震 Thunder

thunder

III

The lines

Line 1Blocked at the outset, stay where you are, strengthen the ground, and find people you can delegate to.
Line 2What approaches is an ally, not a raider—yet the timing is wrong; wait long rather than commit early.
Line 3Chasing the prize without a guide leads deep into the woods; the wise call off the hunt.
Line 4The chance to join forces returns; drop your hesitation and go toward it.
Line 5Your generosity cannot yet flow through; give in small measured ways, for grand gestures will misfire.
Line 6Horses circling, tears exhausted—when a start has truly failed, stop grieving it and begin elsewhere.

All the doors

Every single-step transition available from where you stand.

Inverse (綜) · Opposite (錯)

Inverse (綜)

Opposite (錯)

Written on this

Hexagram 3, Zhun (Difficulty at the Beginning): The Struggle to Sprout

Hexagram 3, Zhun, Difficulty at the Beginning: thunder under water, the sprout forcing through hard ground, its six lines, and what to do when you cast it.

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