Meaning
履 is a shoe, and to tread, and from there the way a person carries themselves. The two trigrams put the youngest daughter, the lake, directly behind the father, heaven: the softest walks with the strongest. Its one broken line sits in the third place, at the top of the lower trigram, close to the five whole lines above. The Judgment gives the scene in a single sentence: one treads on a tiger's tail and the tiger does not bite.
The tradition reads the picture as correct conduct in a dangerous place: politeness, steadiness and a sense of what is fitting, rather than strength, are what keep the tiger quiet. The Image sets the sky above the marsh and draws from it a lesson about order: the superior man tells high from low and settles what people aim at. In our own reading, 履 is about manners in the old and serious sense, how to move among the powerful without giving or taking offence.
The lines
The lines are ways of walking. The first treads its accustomed path; the second walks the level road, "a quiet and solitary man", in Legge's words. The third is the warning: a one-eyed man who thinks he can see, a lame man who thinks he can walk, someone who steps on the tiger's tail and is bitten. The fourth steps on the tail too, but with care, and comes through; the fifth treads resolutely and is in danger even when right. The top line looks back over the whole path walked and reads its signs there.
Its pair is 小畜, hexagram 9, the figure turned over; every line flipped gives 謙, hexagram 15, modesty.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 履 when the year, month and day leave 1 on eight, which puts 乾 heaven above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 2, which puts 兌 lake below. Which line moves depends on what the whole total leaves on six, and each line turns the figure into a different hexagram:
- Line 1 (初九) moving: becomes 6 訟 Sòng, Dispute
- Line 2 (九二) moving: becomes 25 无妄 Wú Wàng, Without Pretence
- Line 3 (六三) moving: becomes 1 乾 Qián, Heaven's Strength
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 61 中孚 Zhōng Fú, Trust at the Centre
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 38 睽 Kuí, Estrangement
- Line 6 (上九) moving: becomes 58 兌 Duì, Openness
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 37 家人 Jiā Rén, The Household. Everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour has the same cast, so the figure describes a moment, not a person.
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.
- Trigram virtues (Shuogua, chapter 7)
- 兌 pleased, open below; 乾 strong, untiring above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- youngest daughter below, father above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- mouth and sheep below; head and horse above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Metal below, Metal above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 9 小畜 Xiǎo Xù, Small Restraint; every line flipped: 15 謙 Qiān, Modesty sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 10, from 268.25° to 273.875° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Treading: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 履 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “(Lî suggests the idea of) one treading on the tail of a tiger, which does not bite him. There will be progress and success.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Sky above and a marsh below; the superior man distinguishes high from low and settles the aims of the people.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 乾 above when the year, month and day leave 1 on eight, 兌 below when the same total with the hour leaves 2.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 10 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Treading on the tiger's tail and not being bitten: good conduct and a clear sense of what is fitting carry a person across dangerous ground.
Claims about it
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Gate 10 of Human Design, at 268.25° to 273.875° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 10.
falseWhat the record shows: The wheel is Shao Yong's circle rotated by Ra Uru Hu in 1987 to 1989 so that hexagram 41 starts at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we found puts the hexagrams on degrees of the zodiac.
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Being born under 履 Lǚ fixes a person's character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A modern reading with no source in the tradition. The Zhouyi has no birth hexagram; the cast reads a figure, not a person, and everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour shares it.
