Meaning
Two whole lines stand at the top of the figure over four broken ones, as something high is seen by everything below it. 觀 means to look, and also to be viewed; the old word is used of a watchtower, and the hexagram plays on both directions of looking. The Judgment gives a moment from a rite: the worshipper has washed his hands and has not yet presented the offering, and stands there with a sincerity and dignity that others see and respect.
The Image puts the wind over the earth and reads it as the early kings travelling through the regions, looking at the people and then setting out their teaching. Among the Han calendar's twelve hexagrams 觀 is the eighth lunar month, with yin risen four lines deep. In our own reading, the hexagram is attention before action, the look that comes first, and the knowledge that one is also being watched.
The lines
The lines are ways of looking. The first is "the looking of a lad", in Legge's English, forgivable in ordinary people and a pity in the superior man; the second peeps out from behind a door. The third looks at the course of its own life to decide whether to go forward or back; the fourth looks at the glory of the realm and is drawn to be the king's guest. The fifth and the top line, the two whole lines, turn the gaze inward and examine their own conduct.
觀 is the sample person's birth hexagram on the system page, with its fourth line moving. Its pair is 臨, hexagram 19; within it lies 剝, hexagram 23.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 觀 when the year, month and day leave 5 on eight, which puts 巽 wind above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 0, counted as 8, which puts 坤 earth 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 (初六) moving: becomes 42 益 Yì, Increase
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 59 渙 Huàn, Scattering
- Line 3 (六三) moving: becomes 53 漸 Jiàn, Step by Step
- Line 4 (六四) moving: becomes 12 否 Pǐ, Blockage
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 23 剝 Bō, Stripping Away
- Line 6 (上九) moving: becomes 8 比 Bǐ, Alliance
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 23 剝 Bō, Stripping Away. 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)
- 坤 yielding, compliant below; 巽 entering, pervading above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- mother below, eldest daughter above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- belly and ox below; thighs and fowl above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Earth below, Wood above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Month in the Han calendars (sovereign hexagram)
- The eighth lunar month (酉), with two yang lines sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 19 臨 Lín, Drawing Near; every line flipped: 34 大壯 Dà Zhuàng, Great Power sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 20, from 60.125° to 65.75° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Looking Out: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 觀 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Kwân shows (how he whom it represents should be like) the worshipper who has washed his hands, but not (yet) presented his offerings …”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Wind moving above the earth; the ancient kings surveyed the regions, observed the people and set forth their instruction.
- The Han calendars (1st century BCE)
- The hexagram of the eighth lunar month, the month of 酉: yin growing from below.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 巽 above when the year, month and day leave 5 on eight, 坤 below when the same total with the hour leaves 0.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 20 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Wind moving over the earth: looking out over the whole, and being looked at in turn; as in the pause before an offering is made, sincerity here is watched, and it is enough.
Claims about it
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Gate 20 of Human Design, at 60.125° to 65.75° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 20.
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 觀 Guān 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.
