Theme
Supreme Success
Carried by eight chapters
In the constellation
Supreme success is the heightened promise the oracle makes when a difficult or pregnant situation nevertheless carries the seed of a great outcome. It renders the same expression (yüan heng) that elsewhere reads Sublime Success, and appears where perseverance can open a way through danger. Its clearest statement is the Judgment of hexagram 3, DIFFICULTY AT THE BEGINNING:
DIFFICULTY AT THE BEGINNING works supreme success,
Furthering through perseverance.
The commentary explains why the promise is so large precisely amid difficulty:
these difficulties arise from the very profusion of all that is struggling to attain form ... if one perseveres there is a prospect of great success, in spite of the existing danger.
Supreme success thus names the favorable verdict reserved for beginnings, births, and turning points — moments when chaos is not an obstacle to success but the raw material of it.