Gene Keys profile, key 33: 遯 Dùn

Key 33 is 遯 Dùn, heaven above a mountain, the hexagram of retreat: the strong withdrawing as the yielding rises from below. Our three words for its bands come from the tail of the retreat and the retreat that is tied, from the Image's distance without hatred, and from the top line's untroubled withdrawal.

Meaning

遯 is to retreat, to withdraw out of reach. Two yielding lines have risen at the bottom of the figure, and the four strong lines above draw back before them, as heaven seems to recede above a mountain. The statement of the hexagram calls this success: a withdrawal at the right moment is not a defeat, and small firmness is still of use. Our gloss is retreat. The text, with Legge's translation, is on the hexagram 33 page.

In the Han calendars 遯 is the sixth lunar month, high summer, when yin has begun to grow. Key 33 pairs with key 34, its figure turned over; its opposite on the wheel is key 19.

The three bands

The Shadow band, Lingering, joins two lines: the first, 遯尾, the tail of the retreat, left behind in danger, and the third, 係遯, a retreat held back by ties. It is staying too long, bound to what should be left. The Gift band, Disengagement, is the Image, 君子以遠小人, 不惡而嚴: the noble person keeps petty people at a distance, not with hatred but with reserve, stepping back in good order. The Siddhi band, Contentment, is the top line, 肥遯, 无不利: a cheerful, well-fed retreat, and nothing that does not further.

The three bands are three ways of leaving: too late, in good order, and lightly.

In a profile

Key 33 belongs to no particular row. It stands in a profile wherever one of the thirteen bodies stood between 7°37′30″ Leo and 13°15′ 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 31 July to 5 August. People born then have key 33 as their Life's Work and its opposite, key 19, as their Evolution, the Earth's place. For people born about three months later, from about 29 October to 3 November, it is the Radiance, where the Sun stood at the design moment.

Each of its six lines is 56′15″ wide. A position from 7°37′30″ Leo is in line 1, read by our theme Foundation; one from 12°18′45″ 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: 遯 Dùn, hexagram 33 in the received (King Wen) order of the Zhouyi; Legge (1882) writes the name Thun sourced
Trigram images: Mountain below, Heaven above, as the Shuo Gua names them sourced
Our gloss: retreat: EsoTerrier's own, the same in our I Ching chart, not a translator's title our construction
Our words for the three bands: Lingering, Disengagement and Contentment, written in October 2026 from the hexagram's own texts; none is one of Rudd's words our construction
Opposite on the wheel: Key 19, 180° round the wheel, with every line reversed; Rudd calls it the programming partner sourced
Pair in the received order: Key 34, 大壯 Dà Zhuàng: 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 34 大壯 Dà Zhuàng sourced
Codon ring (Rudd): Rudd groups this key in his Ring of Trials, which he ties to the stop codons: his grouping and his choice of amino acid, not a finding of genetics sourced
Place on the wheel: Gate 33 of Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987 to 1989), 7°37′30″ Leo to 13°15′ Leo (127.625° to 133.25° of tropical longitude): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced

How the schools read it

The Zhouyi, after Legge (1882): Successful progress; to a small extent it is advantageous to be firm and correct. The text in full is on the hexagram 33 page.
Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987 onward): Gate 33, 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 33, 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 19 its programming partner.
EsoTerrier: Withdrawal in good time: it lingers, tied to what it should leave, steps back in good order and without hatred, and at its peak leaves with nothing to regret and nothing left behind.

Claims about it

Key 33 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 33 belongs to the Ring of Trials, a chemical family in the body tied to the stop codons.
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 33 on the zodiac, 7°37′30″ Leo to 13°15′ 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 33, 遯 Dùn: the sky drawing away above the hill

Facts