The Six Line Positions

Bottom to top: naming the lines

The six lines are counted from the bottom: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, top. The first is called chū 初, “beginning”, rather than “one”; the sixth is called shàng 上, “top”, because it is the summit and also the point of leaving the hexagram.

A yang line is called “nine” (jiǔ 九) and a yin line “six” (liù 六). One explanation: among the generating numbers one to five, the odd ones add to nine (1+3+5) and the even ones to six (2+4). Another: odd numbers are active, so take the greatest, nine; even numbers are still, so take the middle one, six.

The naming has a small rule. For the first and top lines, say the position first: chū jiǔ 初九, shàng liù 上六. For the four middle lines, say the type first: jiǔ èr 九二, liù sì 六四. So Qian's lines are 初九, 九二, 九三, 九四, 九五, 上九, and Kun's are 初六, 六二, 六三, 六四, 六五, 上六. Hear “nine-three” and you know at once: third line, yang.

The lines can also be read as stages of life. The first is youth; the second is early adulthood, old enough to vote and go to university; the third is one's thirties, and so on upward, until the top line, when it is time to take a bow and leave the stage. They can equally stand for ranks in an organisation, from the shop floor to the boardroom.

Heaven, humanity, earth; time and place

The six lines pair up into the Three Powers (sāncái 三才): the first and second are earth, the third and fourth are humanity, the fifth and top are heaven. The scheme invites layered association. The first line is the lower part of earth, so it becomes underground, the deep, and Qian's first line speaks of the “hidden dragon”. The second is the surface of the earth, the fields, so it says “dragon appearing in the field”. The fifth is in heaven: “flying dragon in the sky”. The third and fourth, the human positions, sit at the seam between the two trigrams and carry the most uncertainty. Their texts often use huò 或, “perhaps”, which marks a choice. The difficulty of human life is mostly the difficulty of choosing.

Read every line through both time (shí 時) and place (wèi 位). Time is the overall situation; each hexagram is one kind of time, and circumstances are often stronger than people. Place is where you stand within it. The Great Commentary sums up the tendencies: the second often earns praise, the fourth often fears; the third often meets misfortune, the fifth often achieves. The second and fifth are central and safest. The third sits at the top of the lower trigram and under the upper, neither here nor there, and is the most exposed. The fourth stands next to the ruler in the fifth, which breeds caution. The top line often regrets having gone too far.

These are tendencies, not laws. Qian is the strongest hexagram of all, yet its top line is still the “overreaching dragon” that has cause for regret, and Modesty is one of the rare cases where the third line is auspicious.

Proper place, centrality, resonance, and neighbours

Four sets of tools assess a line's situation.

Proper place (dāngwèi 當位). Positions one, three and five are firm positions, suited to yang; two, four and top are soft positions, suited to yin. Yang in a firm position or yin in a soft one is in its proper place, also called “correct” (zhèng 正). Otherwise it is out of place.

Centrality (jūzhōng 居中). The second line is the middle of the lower trigram, the fifth the middle of the upper. Shielded in front and backed behind, they also incline to balanced conduct. A yang fifth is both central and correct, the ideal seat. One principle runs through the whole book: the centre outranks correctness. A yang line in the second place is technically out of place, yet because it is central it usually ends well. By count, very few second lines are ominous, and few fifth lines; fewer than one in ten third lines is auspicious.

Resonance (yìng 應). Matching positions in the two trigrams answer each other: first with fourth, second with fifth, third with top. One yin and one yang make a true resonance and support each other; two of the same kind cannot help. The usual direction is that yin follows yang.

Neighbours. Adjacent lines are related by bǐ 比, closeness. A lower line beneath an upper one “supports” it (chéng 承); an upper line over a lower one “rides” it (chéng 乘). Yin below yang is good for all: the yin line looks up to something solid and feels secure. Any yin above yang may loosely be called riding, but the texts reserve “riding the firm” for a yin line sitting on top of the hexagram's ruling line, and that spells trouble. Shi 師, the Army, third line: “the army may carry home corpses; misfortune.”

Worked example: After Completion, every line in place

Water over Fire, After Completion (Jìjì 既濟), is the only hexagram in which all six lines are in their proper places. From the bottom: yang in the first (firm) place, yin in the second (soft), yang in the third, yin in the fourth, yang in the fifth, yin at the top. Now the resonances: first with fourth, second with fifth, third with top, and every pair is one yin and one yang. The second and fifth are also central and correct. Structurally, everything is where it should be. The name means the river has been crossed; the matter is done.

Yet the judgment does not say “great fortune”. It says: “success in small things; steadfastness is fitting; auspicious at the start, disorder at the end.” Why? Because when everything is already in place, there is nowhere left to improve, and the only way is down. The Great Image says: “the jūnzǐ reflects on trouble and guards against it in advance.” The moment of completion is the moment to think about what comes after.

The lines carry the same theme. The first: “he brakes his wheels; he wets his tail; no blame”, slowing down just after success. The fifth: “the eastern neighbour slaughters an ox; better the western neighbour's modest spring offering, which truly receives the blessing”; sincerity outweighs display. By the top line: “he wets his head; danger.” He is in over his head.

The lesson: positional analysis is the skeleton of reading, but it cannot be applied mechanically. Being in place, central and resonant are all good conditions, but you must return to the time. The time of completion is precisely when vigilance matters most.