Waiting

Hsü is the hexagram of nourishment through waiting. Clouds gather — the rain will come, but it cannot be hurried. Danger lies ahead (water above), yet strength stands below (heaven within): the situation calls not for retreat and not for a charge, but for confident, patient readiness.

This is waiting as a power, not a resignation. The correct attitude of waiting invites the assistance of the higher power into the creative process. A great crossing — a difficult obstacle, a major life change — may be required, and it can succeed; but only when undertaken with sincerity, inner certainty, and the willingness to let timing belong to something larger than our impatience.

The image is exact: the superior person eats and drinks, joyous and of good cheer. Waiting correctly does not mean anxious vigil — it means strengthening ourselves, staying nourished in body and spirit, maintaining cheerfulness and inner independence while the situation ripens. This attitude, held with modesty, accumulates the very energy that produces progress. The force of inner truth is allowed to penetrate gradually into everything that needs changing; rushed or forced changes produce only surface reforms that do not endure.

We often receive this hexagram when our waiting has gone wrong — when doubts and fears from the ego have crept in, impatience has replaced independence, and others have begun to sense and distrust our unease. The counsel is to recognise these influences and hold firm against them.

The corruptions of waiting are of two kinds. One is collapse: doubt, self-indulgence, and despair that abandon the inner post while appearing outwardly patient. The other is disguised aggression: waiting resentfully, nursing grievance against fate or others, ready to force the outcome the moment strength allows. Both invite exactly the difficulties they fear. True waiting is neither passive nor coiled — it is certain.