Meaning
The trigram 巽 is wind and also wood, and here it stands under the earth: a tree pushing up through the ground. 升 means to rise or ascend, and the tradition reads the hexagram as growth that comes from within and keeps going, without leaps. The Judgment promises great progress, tells the subject to see the great man without fear, and favours advance to the south, the direction of light.
The Image draws its lesson straight from the tree: the superior man attends to his character and adds to it in small increments until it is high and great. Both trigrams are yielding ones, the eldest daughter below and the mother above, so nothing in the figure forces the rise; it comes from within. In our own reading, 升 is the slow rise that does not ask to be noticed, and that depends on keeping at it.
The lines
The first line rises with the welcome of those above, and the fortune is great; the second is sincere enough that a small spring offering is accepted. The third climbs "(as into) an empty city", in Legge's words, meeting no resistance at all. The fourth is employed by the king to make the offering on Mount Qi, the Zhou homeland; the fifth climbs the steps with due ceremony. The top line climbs blindly and is told that only steady correctness helps there.
Within 升 lies 歸妹, hexagram 54; its pair is 萃, hexagram 45, and every line flipped gives 无妄, hexagram 25.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 升 when the year, month and day leave 0, counted as 8 on eight, which puts 坤 earth above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 5, which puts 巽 wind 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 11 泰 Tài, Flow
- Line 2 (九二) moving: becomes 15 謙 Qiān, Modesty
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 7 師 Shī, The Army
- Line 4 (六四) moving: becomes 32 恆 Héng, Constancy
- Line 5 (六五) moving: becomes 48 井 Jǐng, The Well
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 18 蠱 Gǔ, Repairing Decay
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 54 歸妹 Guī Mèi, The Younger Sister Weds. 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)
- 巽 entering, pervading below; 坤 yielding, compliant above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- eldest daughter below, mother above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- thighs and fowl below; belly and ox above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Wood below, Earth 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: 45 萃 Cuì, Gathering; every line flipped: 25 无妄 Wú Wàng, Without Pretence sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 46, from 178.25° to 183.875° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Ascent: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 升 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Shăng indicates that (under its conditions) there will be great progress and success.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Wood growing in the midst of the earth; the superior man attends to his virtue and accumulates its small growths until it is high and great.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 坤 above when the year, month and day leave 0 on eight, 巽 below when the same total with the hour leaves 5.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 46 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Wood growing in the earth: rising step by step from within, small gains added until they stand high; seek those who can help, and go on without anxiety.
Claims about it
-
Gate 46 of Human Design, at 178.25° to 183.875° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 46.
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 升 Shēng 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.
