Hexagram 44 of 64 · King Wen sequence

Coming to Meet

姤 · gòu

Above: Heaven
Below: Wind

Heaven above wind: the dark one arrives unexpectedly — an encounter that must not be courted.

One dark line arrives beneath five light: something unexpected enters, small, appealing, and not to be engaged. Coming to Meet is the hexagram of the unsolicited — the temptation, the shiny offer, the connection that arrives exactly when your defences are high and therefore interesting.

The text is unusually severe: do not marry such an element; the thing must not be courted. Its counsel is containment, early and small — restrain it while it is still a piglet, before it becomes a buffalo of an entanglement.

Questions this hexagram asks

What has just arrived that I did not solicit — and why is it appealing to me exactly now?
Where am I romanticising something the tradition would simply contain?
What small containment now prevents a large entanglement later?

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