Meaning
Water lies ahead, and the mountain is underfoot: danger in front and a hard road behind. 蹇 means lame, walking with difficulty, and the hexagram is obstruction. The Judgment gives directions: advantage in the south-west, not in the north-east, which the tradition reads as the level plain against the mountain pass, the easy way round rather than the hard way through; it adds that it is good to see the great man and to hold firm.
The Image draws the lesson inward: meeting an obstacle, the superior man turns round to look at himself and works on his own character. In our own reading, 蹇 is about what an obstruction is for. The line texts keep going forward into difficulty and coming back to find help and praise, so that the blockage becomes a reason to gather others and to change course.
The lines
The lines repeat one movement: going forward means difficulty, coming back means praise. The second is the king's minister meeting difficulty after difficulty, and not for his own sake; the third and fourth advance into worse and turn back to their companions. The fifth struggles with the greatest difficulty "while friends are coming to help him", in Legge's words, and the top line goes forward into difficulty and comes back to something great.
Within 蹇 lies 未濟, hexagram 64; its pair is 解, hexagram 40, the same figure turned over, and every line flipped gives 睽, hexagram 38.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 蹇 when the year, month and day leave 6 on eight, which puts 坎 water 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 63 既濟 Jì Jì, Already Across
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 48 井 Jǐng, The Well
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 8 比 Bǐ, Alliance
- Line 4 (六四) moving: becomes 31 咸 Xián, Mutual Influence
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 15 謙 Qiān, Modesty
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 53 漸 Jiàn, Step by Step
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 64 未濟 Wèi Jì, Not Yet Across. 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; 坎 sinking, perilous above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- youngest son below, middle son above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- hands and dog below; ears and pig above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Earth below, Water 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: 40 解 Xiè, Release; every line flipped: 38 睽 Kuí, Estrangement sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 39, from 99.5° to 105.125° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Obstruction: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 蹇 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “In (the state indicated by) Kien advantage will be found in the south-west, and the contrary in the north-east.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Water above a mountain; the superior man turns round to examine himself and cultivates his virtue.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 坎 above when the year, month and day leave 6 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 39 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Water on the mountain: the way ahead is blocked; turn back, work on oneself and gather friends, since the difficulty is shared and it teaches.
Claims about it
-
Gate 39 of Human Design, at 99.5° to 105.125° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 39.
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 蹇 Jiǎn 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.
