Meaning
Fire has no shape of its own; it holds to wood, to oil, to whatever it burns. The trigram 離 draws that as an empty middle between two strong lines, and the hexagram doubles it. Legge notes that the character means both brightness and attachment, and that the two senses make it hard to say which the text meant; the tradition keeps both. The Judgment counsels firmness and adds the cow: even brilliance, it says, should be docile and attached to something steady.
The Image is brightness repeated, and the great man is told to make his own clarity greater and to spread it in every direction. In our own reading, 離 is clarity that lasts by being tended and handed on, and that burns out when it only flares. The first part of the received text ends here, with water and fire, as it began with heaven and earth.
The lines
The first line moves with confused steps but treads reverently and avoids error; the second is "in his place in yellow", in Legge's English, the colour of the centre, with great good fortune. The third is the setting sun: instead of beating time on an earthen pot and singing, it sighs like an old man of eighty. The fourth flares up suddenly and is rejected; the fifth weeps and grieves, and that sorrow is called fortunate. At the top the king sends the subject on an expedition that punishes only the leaders.
離 is the birth hexagram in the worked example of our research, with its first line moving, so that it becomes 旅, hexagram 56. Within it lies 大過, hexagram 28; its pair and opposite is 坎, hexagram 29.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 離 when the year, month and day leave 3 on eight, which puts 離 fire above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 3, which puts 離 fire 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 56 旅 Lǚ, The Traveller
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 14 大有 Dà Yǒu, Great Possession
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 21 噬嗑 Shì Kè, Closing the Jaws
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 22 賁 Bì, Adornment
- Line 5 (六五) moving: becomes 13 同人 Tóng Rén, Fellowship
- Line 6 (上九) moving: becomes 55 豐 Fēng, Fullness
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 28 大過 Dà Guò, Great Excess. 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)
- 離 bright, attached, doubled, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- middle daughter, doubled sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- eyes and pheasant, doubled sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Fire, doubled. 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 it is itself; every line flipped: 29 坎 Kǎn, The Abyss sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 30, from 324.5° to 330.125° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Brightness: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 離 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Let (its subject) also nourish (a docility like that of) the cow, and there will be good fortune.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Brightness repeated; the great man cultivates his brilliant virtue and spreads its light over the four quarters.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 離 above when the year, month and day leave 3 on eight, 離 below when the same total with the hour leaves 3.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 30 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Fire doubled: brightness that clings to what feeds it, as flame rests on wood; it lights every side when it is tended and handed on, and burns out when it flares.
Claims about it
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Gate 30 of Human Design, at 324.5° to 330.125° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 30.
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.
-
Being born under 離 Lí 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.
