I Ching Xu Meaning: Hexagram 5 Explained

Draw Xu 需 and students most often hear “wait” as two extremes. One: then I lie down and wait for luck. The other: wait for what — danger ahead, so charge, and charging through will do it.

Both ruin Xu. Xu is not idle and not reckless. Water is above Heaven; Heaven walks below: danger is ahead, a person still has to stay strong, only they do not first throw themselves in.

After Meng 蒙 comes Xu. A child raised a little cannot go unfed. Raising is not only eating. Before the time has come, you raise what can still be raised. People who often draw this hexagram about career mostly already have force; the river has not receded yet.

The image: Kan above Qian below, Waiting

Xu is Kan 坎 above, Qian 乾 below. Water above, Heaven below: Waiting. Kan is danger, rain, ditches; Qian is strength, advancing. A strong person’s first reaction to danger is often to add more force. This hexagram will not let you add it on the blade’s edge.

Above and below are most easily reversed with Song 訟. Song is Heaven-Water Conflict: Heaven above, Water below — that is contention. Xu is Water above, Heaven below — that is waiting. Reverse them and the advice flips: those who should wait go to sue; those who should contend go to wait.

The Xugua says: 「物稚不可不養也，故受之以需。需者飲食之道也。」 What is still young cannot go unraised; therefore Xu follows. Xu’s original sense, the ancients put straight as the way of food and drink: eat first, drink first, keep life raised. In a reading this line is earthy and accurate. When the matter has not reached being able to cross the river, what you ask is not “how do I succeed in one go.” It is “are my food, cash, and stamina still there.”

The Tuan says: 「需，須也。險在前也。剛健而不陷。」 Xu is waiting, must wait. Danger is ahead; you can see it. Firm and strong and not sinking: that is this hexagram’s backbone. Force is still there; you have not fallen into the pit. Draw Xu and it is not that you are weak. It is that Kan is in front of you. Weak people sink. Strong people choose to wait first.

The judgment: 「有孚，光亨，貞吉。利涉大川。」 There is sincerity, credit, a real bottom. Wait correctly and the road will still open. Beneficial to cross a great stream: in the end you can cross. Only it is not this step that jumps in. Many people only see “beneficial to cross a great stream” and skip the waiting. That is reading half a sentence.

The Xiang says clouds over Heaven, Xu; the superior person takes food, drink, and enjoyment. Not telling you to drink yourself numb. Danger is still in the clouds; first finish the meal, keep people, sleep the body back. Enjoyment here is raising, not fleeing.

Career and wealth when you draw Xu

Ask about career and draw Xu: the overall judgment is, not yet — first keep food, cash, and stamina raised. Plans can be written, people seen, skills practiced, contracts talked. The move that crosses the river, hold it. Going public, quitting with nothing, large leverage, mortgaging the house to open a company: all look like doing Qian’s flying dragon in front of Kan. The harder you fly, the faster you sink.

Xu’s wealth is not no money. The rhythm of money is “raise first, use later.” Salary, savings, stores of grain, whether receivables have come back: more important than whether a new project can open. Someone asks “should I put the last sum in,” draws Xu, and I almost always block it. Xu is the way of food and drink. The last sum is your food, not your proof of courage.

Interviews, proposals, waiting for approval, waiting for the other party’s stamp: Xu is very common. Nine in the fifth, 「需于酒食，貞吉」: wait until you can sit down to eat, can collect what should be collected, then it is lucky. Still in the mud, still in blood, and pretending you are already at the banquet: that will go wrong.

Travel, going abroad, crossing a great stream: the same. The judgment says it is beneficial to cross a great stream: in direction you can cross, not “today’s ticket is cheapest so go.” Danger is ahead. Leave slack in the itinerary, papers complete, body able to hold. Xu is not a ban on travel. It is a ban on blind travel.

Waiting for promotion, for a vacancy, for a project to pass, and drawing Xu: more like “this breath is still strong; the vacancy is still behind the Kan ahead.” Going to make a scene, threaten, talk outside: easy to sink yourself into nine in the third’s attracting robbers. Filling your proper work, looking after the body, keeping savings: that is Xu’s professional performance. It does not look like striving. It is firm and strong and not sinking.

Love and people when you draw Xu

Ask about love and draw Xu: the relationship mostly is not absent. It cannot land yet. The liking is real; marriage, living together, going public, meeting parents: a stretch of water is still ahead. Forcing a deadline on the other person is like jumping the stream yourself.

What fits the hexagram is raising: keep ordinary life, keep the quality of meeting, keep speech on sincerity, do not audit progress every day. With sincerity, light can open. Once doubt becomes daily interrogation, Xu waits itself into exhaustion.

If you are single and draw Xu, the connection may be on the other shore, not absent. First let yourself eat, sleep, work; when a person appears you can receive them. Smashing “waiting” with a streak of dates is using Qian’s method to live Xu. What you spend is qi.

If you are already together, Xu often appears waiting for the other person to divorce, graduate, get parents’ nod, or for the two of you to have enough money. Some of this waiting is reasonable; some is waiting yourself into a pit. Look at the line. Six in the fourth, waiting in blood, coming out of the cave: climbing out of harm. Upper six, entering the cave, uninvited guests: something suddenly comes in; be respectful, do not panic. Xu in love most fears turning waiting into self-torture and calling it being correct. Correctness is rightness, not unlimited self-abuse.

With people, Xu advises you to hurry less. Hurry a client, a superior, a friend to reply, past the measure of sincerity, and they will treat you as a robber. The food-and-drink line tells you: when it has truly arrived, you can sit down and eat. Not yet arrived, waving from the mud, you only treat passers-by as enemies and yourself as a victim.

Four lines of Xu you must know

Nine in the third: 需于泥，致寇至. Waiting in the mud. Mud is almost touching water; the place is too near danger. 致寇至: you will attract robbers. Draw nine in the third: the matter has already come to the edge of danger — chasing payment until the other party turns, negotiating until they bring pressure, adding stakes in an unstable market. This is not “wait a bit more and you are ashore.” The place you are standing itself invites trouble. Stepping back to sand, to the outskirts, is smarter than one more step into the mud. In work it is especially common as “just a little more, I will borrow one more sum.” That sum is often the robber.

Six in the fourth: 需于血，出自穴. Blood is injury; the cave is a pit, a place that holds you. This line has already been hurt, but it writes coming out of the cave: you can come out. Draw six in the fourth: do not pretend nothing is wrong. Admit harm, entanglement, an unseen hole, then find the exit. Law, medicine, leaving the situation that is hurting you: all are coming out of the cave. Waiting in blood is not telling you to raise yourself in the blood a while longer. It is raising while coming out.

Nine in the fifth: 需于酒食，貞吉. Waited until you can drink and eat. Nine in the fifth is in position: the line in Xu that most looks like “the time has come.” Draw nine in the fifth: you can harvest, sign, sit at the table, bring out the matter you have raised a long time. Still be correct. Food and drink are raising, celebrating — not indulging until nothing is left the next day. Ask about wealth, a banquet, a contract landing: nine in the fifth is the strongest.

Upper six: 入于穴，有不速之客三人來，敬之終吉. Enter the cave; three uninvited guests come. Uninvited guests can be a sudden chance, a sudden inspection, sudden help, sudden trouble. Respect them and it ends in luck. Draw the upper six: variables will crash in from outside; you can no longer wait in the original way. The door opens, people come: first respect, first receive, first bring out the rules. Do not flip the table because it was not in the plan. Three need not be locked as the number three. It means more than one variable arrived at once.

Nine in the third is waiting too near danger. Six in the fourth is coming out of the cave wounded. Nine in the fifth is waiting until you can eat. The upper six is the structure of waiting broken by guests. All four lines are waiting. The place of waiting is completely different.

The classroom move I correct most often

Living Xu as “I do nothing, that is believing in timing.” That is idleness, not Xu. Firm and strong and not sinking: the two words “firm and strong” are still there. Go to class, practice, stock the goods. Only the moves that stake a person in at once — crossing the river, opening war, laying the cards down — you do not do yet.

I have students who draw Xu check three stores:

1. Food: can you eat, can you sleep? Xu is the way of food and drink. If the body collapses, waiting waits itself into illness.
2. Cash: is three to six months of living money still there? If not, you are not in Xu. You are in the mud.
3. Credit: is there sincerity? Do your words still count? While waiting it is easiest to lie in order to go a little faster. One lie and the light goes out.

Keep the three stores raised, and the great stream is truly beneficial. Fail to raise them and that line “beneficial to cross a great stream” will be read as encouragement to jump in.

After Xu is Song. Wait badly, grab food, grab place, and you will quarrel. So Xu is not a personality contest in patience. It is the technique of keeping the next hexagram from arriving early.

I Ching Xu further reading

Xu follows Meng. Meng is still not understanding; Xu is understanding a little and still having to raise. Compare: I Ching Meng Meaning | Hexagram 4 How to Read: Youthful Folly and Finding a Teacher. Wait badly and you get Song: I Ching Song Meaning | Hexagram 6 How to Read: Conflict and How to Stop. When ease truly opens, that is Tai 泰: I Ching Tai Meaning | Hexagram 11 How to Read: Advance or Guard in Peace.

I Ching Xu FAQ

Does drawing Xu mean I cannot act this whole year?

You can act. You cannot sink. Practice, preparing materials, meeting, raising the body: all are action. What you cannot do is push every chip across the river while danger has not receded. Crossing a great stream is the result; waiting is the process. Delete the process and the result will not come early.

I have waited a long time and still draw Xu. Is the person or the job wrong?

It may be that the time has not come. It may be that the place you are waiting is wrong. Mud like nine in the third: the longer you wait, the more you attract robbers. Moving to the outskirts, to sand, is changing place, not abandoning the goal. In love, if you are waiting for someone who never gives a name, that is not waiting at food and drink. That is raising yourself in a cave. Match the line and you can tell.

Xu and Zhun 屯 both feel bad. What is the difference?

Zhun is just born, has to circle, has to establish a marquis; the hardness is at the beginning. Xu already has force, danger is ahead, has to raise, has to wait; the hardness is not advancing recklessly. People in Zhun often lack help. People in Xu often lack patience, or use patience as taking a beating. One has to establish; one has to wait.

Nine in the fifth, waiting at food and drink: can I feast and throw a party?

You can eat; be correct. Food and drink in Xu are raising in place, the share that should be yours. Celebration is fine. Drinking the stores dry, talking the talk full, treating the next round as already won: that slides out of nine in the fifth. After eating, still remember the cloud overhead.

For an online hexagram, try free love divination and match both birthdays with this reading.