The word
吝, lìn, gathers several ideas: humiliation, the discomfort of a mistake that's become visible, and also narrowness or stinginess. In Cambios we say "distress": the bad taste left by staying on a course that no longer serves.
Where it appears
- Constancy brings distress (貞吝): persisting in something that doesn't deserve it. In the third line of What Lasts: "Not making one's virtue last; perhaps shame will follow. Constancy brings distress."
- Going on: distress (往吝): pushing ahead now ends badly.
- Distress, on its own, at the end of many lines.
Next to regret
The Great Commentary groups it with regret. Zhu Xi saw them pointing opposite ways: regret leads toward good, because it moves you to correct course; distress leads toward bad, because whoever doesn't put things right ends up stuck. So distress is a warning: it isn't yet misfortune on the scale of good fortune and misfortune, but it's heading that way unless something changes.
In a reading
If you get "distress," ask yourself what you're clinging to: a position, your pride, an idea of how things ought to be. The text often shows you which course brings it on; changing it in time is usually enough. Unlike no fault, here there's something to fix.