Gene Keys profile, key 39: 蹇 Jiǎn

Key 39 is 蹇 Jiǎn, water above a mountain: a torrent at the top of a steep path, the hexagram of obstruction. The text's answer is to turn back on oneself, and our three words for its bands come from the Image's self-examination and from the fifth line, where friends arrive in the middle of the difficulty.

Meaning

蹇 is to limp, and so to go with difficulty. The figure sets water, danger, above the mountain, which stops the way: a steep path with a torrent ahead. The statement of the hexagram points to the south-west, the direction of the yielding, rather than the north-east, and says it is good to see the great person and to stay firm. Our gloss is obstruction, limping. The text is on the hexagram 39 page.

Its line texts repeat a pattern: going on meets difficulty, coming back meets praise. Key 39 pairs with key 40, the obstacle released, and has key 38 as its opposite on the wheel.

The three bands

The Shadow band, Blaming, is the reverse of the Image's counsel: where the text says to turn round and look at oneself, this band fixes on the obstacle and faults it. The Gift band, Self-examination, is the Image itself, 君子以反身修德: water on the mountain, and the noble person turns back to themselves and cultivates their character. The Siddhi band, Companionship, is the fifth line, 大蹇朋來: in the greatest difficulty, friends come.

The bands describe three answers to being stuck: blame, inner work, and fellowship found in the difficulty.

In a profile

Key 39 belongs to no particular row. It stands in a profile wherever one of the thirteen bodies stood between 9°30′ Cancer and 15°07′30″ Cancer 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 1 to 6 July. People born then have key 39 as their Life's Work and its opposite, key 38, as their Evolution, the Earth's place. For people born about three months later, from about 1 to 6 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 9°30′ Cancer is in line 1, read by our theme Foundation; one from 14°11′15″ Cancer 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: 蹇 Jiǎn, hexagram 39 in the received (King Wen) order of the Zhouyi; Legge (1882) writes the name Kien sourced
Trigram images: Mountain below, Water above, as the Shuo Gua names them sourced
Our gloss: obstruction, limping: EsoTerrier's own, the same in our I Ching chart, not a translator's title our construction
Our words for the three bands: Blaming, Self-examination and Companionship, written in October 2026 from the hexagram's own texts; none is one of Rudd's words our construction
Opposite on the wheel: Key 38, 180° round the wheel, with every line reversed; Rudd calls it the programming partner sourced
Pair in the received order: Key 40, 解 Xiè: the same six lines turned upside down, next to it in the received order sourced
Within and upside down: Lines 2 to 5 give 64 未濟 Wèi Jì; the figure turned upside down gives 40 解 Xiè sourced
Codon ring (Rudd): Rudd groups this key in his Ring of Seeking, which he ties to serine: his grouping and his choice of amino acid, not a finding of genetics sourced
Place on the wheel: Gate 39 of Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987 to 1989), 9°30′ Cancer to 15°07′30″ Cancer (99.5° to 105.125° of tropical longitude): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced

How the schools read it

The Zhouyi, after Legge (1882): Advantage in the south-west and not in the north-east; advantage in seeing the great man; firmness brings good fortune. The text in full is on the hexagram 39 page.
Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987 onward): Gate 39, in the Root 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 39, 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 38 its programming partner.
EsoTerrier: An obstacle in the way: it blames the obstacle instead of looking at itself, turns back to work on itself when the way is shut, and at its peak finds companions arriving because the difficulty is shared.

Claims about it

Key 39 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 39 belongs to the Ring of Seeking, a chemical family in the body tied to serine.
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 39 on the zodiac, 9°30′ Cancer to 15°07′30″ Cancer, 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 39, 蹇 Jiǎn: water at the top of a steep hill

Facts