How to Read a Hexagram

Eight steps

A hexagram can be read in a fixed order:

1. The name: what the character means, and how it is pronounced. 2. The image: which trigrams sit below and above, and how their qualities interact; where useful, the nuclear trigrams and the hexagram's derivation. 3. The Sequence: how the Sequence of the Hexagrams says it follows from the one before. 4. The judgment: the verdict on the whole hexagram. 5. The Tuan commentary: the reasons behind the judgment. 6. The Great Image: what the jūnzǐ learns from the picture. 7. The six lines, bottom to top. For each, first the position (in place, central, resonant, neighbours, relation to the ruling line), then the line statement and its Small Image, and finally a story or situation that makes it concrete. 8. The lesson for life: what the hexagram as a whole teaches.

One habit of mind has to change. Usually you gather material first and are tested on understanding at the end. With the Yi it is reversed: you are handed the answer first, “heaven moves with strength; the jūnzǐ strengthens himself without ceasing”, and asked to find the reasons. Why is it written this way? Where does each word come from? If you cannot find the reason, you have not yet understood. And by all means memorise the original, but understand it first in plain modern language, or your recitation will sound like an incantation.

Modesty: name, image, sequence, judgment

Name: qiān 謙, modesty. Hexagram fifteen.

Image: Kun above, Gen below; Earth over Mountain. A high mountain is hidden beneath the ground, and the surface lies flat. A mountain is whatever makes people look up and stop short: great wealth, great power, great learning, great reputation. True modesty means having a mountain and keeping it out of sight, appearing level with everyone else. Someone with nothing to hide who behaves ordinarily is not modest, merely normal. So the first question Modesty asks is: where is your mountain? In terms of qualities, the inner trigram Gen stops and the outer trigram Kun yields: restraint within, gentleness without.

Sequence: “One who has much may not be full; therefore Modesty follows.” The previous hexagram is Dàyǒu 大有, Great Possession. Having a great deal, one must not become complacent. Wealthy and yet fond of propriety, as the Analects puts it.

Judgment: “Modesty: success. The jūnzǐ has an end.” “Has an end” (yǒu zhōng 有終) means a good end, a life brought to a worthy close. However brilliant the middle of a life, it is a sad thing to finish in prison; a life is judged only when the coffin is closed. What makes Modesty good is precisely this good end.

The Tuan commentary and the Great Image

The Tuan commentary says: “The way of heaven diminishes the full and adds to the modest; the way of earth overturns the full and flows toward the modest; ghosts and spirits harm the full and bless the modest; the way of humans hates the full and loves the modest.” Heaven, earth, spirits and humanity are named together in only two places in the whole Yi: here and in Qian's Wenyan.

Heaven: the moon wanes once full, then waxes again. Earth: high cliffs collapse and fill the valleys; rivers change course. Spirits: the arrogant usually need no spirit to bring them down, they ruin themselves, while the modest find help on every side. People: a friend who is able and arrogant is someone you avoid; one who is able and modest is a pleasure. Praise yourself and others will not bother; say nothing and they will praise you.

The commentary opens with “the way of heaven descends to help and shines; the way of earth is low and rises.” This is read through the hexagram's derivation (guàbiàn 卦變). Modesty comes from Bō 剝, Stripping: Stripping's top yang line descends to the third place, “heaven descends”, while the yin line that was third rises to the top, “earth rises”. Upper and lower exchange, so there is success.

Great Image: “Within the earth there is a mountain: Modesty. The jūnzǐ reduces what is excessive and adds to what is scant, weighs things and distributes evenly.” It echoes Laozi: the way of heaven takes from what has too much and supplies what has too little. A society where the poor grow poorer and the rich richer cannot be at peace. Modesty, in the end, comes down to fairness.

The six lines and the lesson for life

What makes Modesty unique is that every line is either “auspicious” or “favourable”: the lower three all auspicious, the upper three all favourable. No other hexagram has this.

First six: “Modest, modest is the jūnzǐ; he may cross the great river; auspicious.” At the very bottom, doubly modest. Inside Gen, which stops, and without resonance from the fourth, it ought to be stuck. But above it lie the nuclear trigram Kan (lines 2–4), water, the great river, and modesty gives it the strength to cross. The Small Image: “low, he shepherds himself.”

Second six: “Modesty that resounds; steadfast, auspicious.” Míng 鳴, to resound, to answer. Right beside the ruling line, central and correct, its response to modesty comes from the heart: “it is gained in the centre.”

Nine in the third: “The toiling, modest jūnzǐ has an end; auspicious.” The only yang line, the ruler; five yin lines lean on it, so it works hardest. Third lines are rarely auspicious; this one is, because it has merit and does not boast. The Great Commentary quotes Confucius: “To toil without bragging, to achieve without claiming virtue: this is generosity at its height.”

Fourth six: “Nothing unfavourable; spread modesty.” It sits above the ruler and would normally be “riding the firm”, but the toiling third does not mind, so no harm follows.

Fifth six: “Not wealthy, yet he has his neighbours; favourable to launch a campaign; nothing unfavourable.” In the ruler's seat modesty cannot go all the way down; those who refuse to submit still need to feel authority.

Top six: “Modesty that resounds; favourable to send troops against one's own towns.” It answers the third, but sitting at the summit of a hexagram about lowliness is awkward: “his aim is not yet attained.”

Lesson for life: first grow a mountain, then hide it. Do not boast of what you have done, and the merit stays with you. And let modesty fit your role; where authority is your duty, do not give it up.