Key 41, 損 Sǔn: the lake that gives its water to the mountain

Meaning

損 means to decrease, to reduce. The figure is read as key 11 with its third line moved to the top: something taken from below and given to what is above, as a lake at the foot of a mountain gives its moisture to the slope. The statement of the hexagram turns decrease into an offering: with sincerity there is great good fortune, and two small bowls of grain are enough for the sacrifice. Our gloss is decrease. The full text is on the hexagram 41 page.

Key 41 has a special place in this system only because of the wheel: Ra Uru Hu set its start at 2° Aquarius and counted the other 63 from there, so it is the first key the Sun reaches after about 22 January. That is a convention of the 1980s, not of the I Ching. Key 41 pairs with key 42, increase; its opposite is key 31.

The three bands

The Shadow band, Indulgence, is the reverse of the Image, 君子以懲忿窒欲: the noble person checks anger and restrains desire. Its failure is letting both run. The Gift band, Sufficiency, is the statement's 二簋可用享: two small bowls may be offered, a little is enough when it is sincere. The Siddhi band, Sincerity, is the statement's opening, 有孚, 元吉: there is sincerity, supreme good fortune, an offering that is all heart.

So the bands run from excess, through enough, to the giving that makes the amount beside the point. They are a theme, never advice about anything anyone owns.

In a profile

Key 41 belongs to no particular row. It stands in a profile wherever one of the thirteen bodies stood between 2°00′ Aquarius and 7°37′30″ Aquarius 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 22 to 27 January. People born then have key 41 as their Life's Work and its opposite, key 31, as their Evolution, the Earth's place. For people born about three months later, from about 20 to 25 April, 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′ Aquarius is in line 1, read by our theme Foundation; one from 6°41′15″ Aquarius 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

損 Sǔn, hexagram 41 in the received (King Wen) order of the Zhouyi; Legge (1882) writes the name Sun sourced

Trigram images

Lake / marsh below, Mountain above, as the Shuo Gua names them sourced

Our gloss

decrease: EsoTerrier's own, the same in our I Ching chart, not a translator's title our construction

Our words for the three bands

Indulgence, Sufficiency and Sincerity, written in October 2026 from the hexagram's own texts; none is one of Rudd's words our construction

Opposite on the wheel

Key 31, 180° round the wheel, with every line reversed; Rudd calls it the programming partner sourced

Pair in the received order

Key 42, 益 Yì: the same six lines turned upside down, next to it in the received order sourced

Within and upside down

Lines 2 to 5 give 24 復 Fù; the figure turned upside down gives 42 益 Yì sourced

Codon ring (Rudd)

Rudd groups this key in his Ring of Origin, which he ties to methionine (the start codon): his grouping and his choice of amino acid, not a finding of genetics sourced

Place on the wheel

Gate 41 of Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987 to 1989), 2°00′ Aquarius to 7°37′30″ Aquarius (302° to 307.625° of tropical longitude): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced

How the schools read it

The Zhouyi, after Legge (1882)

With sincerity there will be great good fortune, freedom from error, firmness that can be maintained and advantage in every movement; two baskets of grain may be used in sacrifice. The text in full is on the hexagram 41 page.

Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987 onward)

Gate 41, 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 41, 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 31 its programming partner.

EsoTerrier

Decrease that is willing: it lets anger and appetite run, knows that a little, sincerely given, is enough, and at its peak is an offering that is all heart and no show.

Claims about it

• Key 41 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 41 belongs to the Ring of Origin, a chemical family in the body tied to methionine (the start codon).

  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 41 on the zodiac, 2°00′ Aquarius to 7°37′30″ Aquarius, 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

• Hexagram 41: Decrease the I Ching text this key is read from
• Key 31: 咸 Xián, feeling, mutual response its opposite on the wheel
• Key 42: 益 Yì, increase its pair in the received order
• Key 24: 復 Fù, return the hexagram within it, lines 2 to 5
• Human Design gate 41 the same place in the system the profile is calculated by