Meaning
The youngest son, the mountain, stands below the youngest daughter, the lake: stillness under gladness, and the two answering each other. 咸 means all, together, and in this hexagram to feel or to influence, and the tradition reads it as the attraction between two that begins the second half of the book, as heaven and earth begin the first. The Judgment promises success, and compares the firmness it asks for to the firmness proper to taking a young wife.
The Image draws a lesson about receptivity: the superior man keeps his mind empty of preoccupation so that others can reach it. In our own reading, 咸 is influence that is felt before it is understood, and that is deepest when it is least contrived.
The lines
The lines follow feeling up the body, one part at a time: the first is "one moving his great toes", in Legge's English, then come the calves, then the thighs, which cling too closely to what they follow. The fourth has no body part, only the counsel of firmness and the warning that restless coming and going draws only friends of one's own mind; the fifth moves the flesh of the back, and the top line moves the jaws and tongue, influence that has become talk.
In the plum blossom story
The Plum Blossom book's first case ends here. In its telling, Shao Yong counted the year, month, day and hour of the moment he saw two sparrows fall from a branch, found 革, hexagram 49, with its first line moving, and so came to 咸. The story is the book's own, and the book was compiled in the Ming period under his name.
Its pair is 恆, hexagram 32, the figure turned over; within 咸 lies 姤, hexagram 44.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 咸 when the year, month and day leave 2 on eight, which puts 兌 lake above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 7, which puts 艮 mountain 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 49 革 Gé, Changing the Hide
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 28 大過 Dà Guò, Great Excess
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 45 萃 Cuì, Gathering
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 39 蹇 Jiǎn, Obstruction
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 62 小過 Xiǎo Guò, Small Excess
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 33 遯 Dùn, Retreat
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 44 姤 Gòu, Encounter. 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)
- 艮 stopping, at rest below; 兌 pleased, open above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- youngest son below, youngest daughter above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- hands and dog below; mouth and sheep above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Earth 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: 32 恆 Héng, Constancy; every line flipped: 41 損 Sǔn, Decrease sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 31, from 122° to 127.625° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Mutual Influence: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 咸 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Its advantageousness will depend on the being firm and correct, (as) in marrying a young lady. There will be good fortune.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- A marsh above a mountain; the superior man keeps his mind free of preoccupation and open to others.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 兌 above when the year, month and day leave 2 on eight, 艮 below when the same total with the hour leaves 7.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 31 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- A lake on the mountain: an influence felt before it is understood, two moved at once; receive others with an open, empty heart rather than restless coming and going.
Claims about it
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Gate 31 of Human Design, at 122° to 127.625° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 31.
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 咸 Xián 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.
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Shao Yong invented the time method on the day his cast gave 49 革 becoming 31 咸.
told as loreWhat the record shows: That cast is the Plum Blossom book's own opening story. The book was compiled in the Ming period under Shao Yong's name; no Song source tells the story.
