Meaning
Water runs together on the ground and becomes a lake: the picture of things collecting. 萃 means to gather, to assemble, and the figure has its centre in two whole lines at the fourth and fifth places, with four broken lines gathering round them. The Judgment places the gathering at the ancestral temple, where the king brings his people together in a common rite, and promises success to the one who seeks the great man and holds firm; large offerings, it says, bring good fortune.
The Image draws a cautious lesson from the crowd: where many gather, the superior man keeps his weapons in order against what cannot be foreseen. In our own reading, 萃 is gathering round a centre worth gathering round, and preparing for what any gathering can bring. It is the second half of the book's counterpart to 比, hexagram 8, union round a centre.
The lines
The first line wants union and cannot carry it through, and its cry turns to laughter when it is answered. The second is drawn forward, and even a small spring offering is accepted when it is sincere. The third gathers with sighs and finds no advantage; the fourth is fortunate and so escapes blame. The fifth gathers everyone in the place of dignity and is told to deepen its virtue where trust is lacking. The top line is "sighing and weeping", in Legge's English, and is not blamed.
Within 萃 lies 漸, hexagram 53; its pair is 升, hexagram 46, and every line flipped gives 大畜, hexagram 26.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 萃 when the year, month and day leave 2 on eight, which puts 兌 lake 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 17 隨 Suí, Following
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 47 困 Kùn, Confinement
- Line 3 (六三) moving: becomes 31 咸 Xián, Mutual Influence
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 8 比 Bǐ, Alliance
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 16 豫 Yù, Readiness
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 12 否 Pǐ, Blockage
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 53 漸 Jiàn, Step by Step. 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; 兌 pleased, open above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- mother below, youngest daughter above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- belly and ox 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: 46 升 Shēng, Ascent; every line flipped: 26 大畜 Dà Xù, Great Restraint sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 45, from 77° to 82.625° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Gathering: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 萃 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “In (the state denoted by) Zhui, the king will repair to his ancestral temple.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- A marsh raised above the earth; the superior man keeps his weapons in repair against the unforeseen.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 兌 above when the year, month and day leave 2 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 45 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- The lake over the earth: people gathering round a centre and a shared rite; where many come together, the unforeseen is prepared for.
Claims about it
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Gate 45 of Human Design, at 77° to 82.625° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 45.
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 萃 Cuì 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.
