Gene Keys profile, key 31: 咸 Xián

Key 31 is 咸 Xián, a lake on top of a mountain, the hexagram of mutual influence that opens the second part of the I Ching. Our words for its three bands come from the restless coming and going of its fourth line, the Image's emptiness that receives others, and the commentary's two forces moving each other.

Meaning

咸 means all, together, and with the heart added below it is 感, to feel and to be moved. The figure puts the youngest daughter, the lake, above the youngest son, the mountain: the strong placing itself beneath the yielding, so that each responds to the other. The statement of the hexagram promises success and speaks of taking a young woman in marriage. The line texts climb the body from the toes to the jaws, each a place where influence is felt. Our gloss is feeling, mutual response. The text is on the hexagram 31 page.

Key 31 pairs with key 32, the same lines turned over; its opposite on the wheel is key 41.

The three bands

The Shadow band, Fidgeting, is the fourth line, 憧憧往來, 朋從爾思: restless coming and going, and only friends follow your thoughts. It is trying to make things happen by constant motion. The Gift band, Open-heartedness, is the Image, 君子以虛受人: the noble person is empty within and so receives others. The Siddhi band, Resonance, is the commentary on the statement, 二氣感應以相與: the two forces stir and answer each other and come together, two moved at once with no one pushing.

The three bands describe influence at three depths: agitation, receptivity, and response that needs no effort.

In a profile

Key 31 belongs to no particular row. It stands in a profile wherever one of the thirteen bodies stood between 2°00′ Leo and 7°37′30″ Leo at birth or at the design moment, and so it can fill any of the thirteen rows or the three further tags.

The Sun passes through it each year from about 25 to 30 July. People born then have key 31 as their Life's Work and its opposite, key 41, as their Evolution, the Earth's place. For people born about three months later, from about 23 to 28 October, it is the Radiance, where the Sun stood at the design moment.

Each of its six lines is 56′15″ wide. A position from 2°00′ Leo is in line 1, read by our theme Foundation; one from 6°41′15″ Leo is in line 6, Overview. Every key's lines take the same six themes of ours, and the line of a fast body like the Moon depends on the birth time to the hour.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Hexagram and number: 咸 Xián, hexagram 31 in the received (King Wen) order of the Zhouyi; Legge (1882) writes the name Hsien sourced
Trigram images: Mountain below, Lake / marsh above, as the Shuo Gua names them sourced
Our gloss: feeling, mutual response: EsoTerrier's own, the same in our I Ching chart, not a translator's title our construction
Our words for the three bands: Fidgeting, Open-heartedness and Resonance, written in October 2026 from the hexagram's own texts; none is one of Rudd's words our construction
Opposite on the wheel: Key 41, 180° round the wheel, with every line reversed; Rudd calls it the programming partner sourced
Pair in the received order: Key 32, 恆 Héng: the same six lines turned upside down, next to it in the received order sourced
Within and upside down: Lines 2 to 5 give 44 姤 Gòu; the figure turned upside down gives 32 恆 Héng sourced
Codon ring (Rudd): Rudd groups this key in his Ring of No Return, which he ties to tyrosine: his grouping and his choice of amino acid, not a finding of genetics sourced
Place on the wheel: Gate 31 of Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987 to 1989), 2°00′ Leo to 7°37′30″ Leo (122° to 127.625° of tropical longitude): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced

How the schools read it

The Zhouyi, after Legge (1882): Free course and success; advantage in firmness, as in marrying a young lady; good fortune. The text in full is on the hexagram 31 page.
Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987 onward): Gate 31, in the Throat centre. The parent system gives the gate its own name and reading, which are Jovian Archive's and which we do not give here.
Richard Rudd, The Gene Keys (2009): Key 31, read at three bands he calls the Shadow, the Gift and the Siddhi, each with a word of his own, under a chapter title of his own; we reproduce neither. He names key 41 its programming partner.
EsoTerrier: Influence between two: it fidgets back and forth trying to make things happen, makes room inside so that others can come in, and at its peak is two moved at once, with no one pushing.

Claims about it

Key 31 is a code held in the genes, and contemplating it changes how they are expressed.
unverified

What the record shows: The central metaphor of Rudd's system, given by its author, not a finding. The profile is the positions of thirteen bodies at two moments, read on a 64-part wheel; no gene, codon or measurement of the body enters it.
Key 31 belongs to the Ring of No Return, a chemical family in the body tied to tyrosine.
unverified

What the record shows: Rudd's grouping. His ring sizes follow the real number of codons per amino acid in the genetic code, but which hexagram goes with which codon is his own choice, and nothing in genetics links a hexagram to an amino acid.
The place of key 31 on the zodiac, 2°00′ Leo to 7°37′30″ Leo, is an old I Ching teaching.
false

What the record shows: The wheel is Ra Uru Hu's, fixed between 1987 and 1989 by turning Shao Yong's 11th-century circle of the hexagrams so that hexagram 41 begins at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we know ties the hexagrams to degrees of the zodiac.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

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Key 31, 咸 Xián: the lake resting on the mountain

Facts