Meaning
Thunder twice over, the eldest son doubled: movement bursting up from below in both halves of the figure. 震 means to shake, to quake, to startle, and the hexagram is the shock itself. Legge's romanisation, Kăn, loses in plain text the mark that tells it from his name for the next hexagram, so the two look identical without the Chinese. The Judgment begins with ease and development and then gives the scene: when the thunder comes there is fear, then laughter, and the shock that frightens everyone for a hundred miles does not make the one at the sacrifice drop the ladle.
The Image reads the repeated thunder as a reason for watchfulness: the superior man, alarmed, puts his conduct in order and examines his faults. In our own reading, 震 is about composure under shock, and about using fear to look at oneself rather than to run.
The lines
The first line is the Judgment in small: apprehension first, then smiling and cheerful talk. The second, in danger, lets go of its possessions and climbs a high place, and is told not to chase them, for they return in seven days. The third is distraught and is told to let the shock move it to act; the fourth sinks "supinely" into the mud, in Legge's English. The fifth goes back and forth in danger and loses nothing; the top line trembles and looks about, and is told to stay still before the shock reaches it.
Its pair is 艮, hexagram 52, the same figure upside down; within 震 lies 蹇, hexagram 39, and every line flipped gives 巽, hexagram 57.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 震 when the year, month and day leave 4 on eight, which puts 震 thunder above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 4, which puts 震 thunder 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 16 豫 Yù, Readiness
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 54 歸妹 Guī Mèi, The Younger Sister Weds
- Line 3 (六三) moving: becomes 55 豐 Fēng, Fullness
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 24 復 Fù, Return
- Line 5 (六五) moving: becomes 17 隨 Suí, Following
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 21 噬嗑 Shì Kè, Closing the Jaws
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 39 蹇 Jiǎn, Obstruction. 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)
- 震 moving, startling, doubled, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- eldest son, doubled sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- feet and dragon, doubled sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Wood, 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: 52 艮 Gèn, Stopping; every line flipped: 57 巽 Xùn, Entering Wind sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 51, from 15.125° to 20.75° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Shock: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 震 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Kăn gives the intimation of ease and development.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Thunder repeated; the superior man is fearful and apprehensive, cultivates his virtue and examines his faults.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 震 above when the year, month and day leave 4 on eight, 震 below when the same total with the hour leaves 4.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 51 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Thunder doubled: the shock that frightens and then clears the air; fear first and laughter after, and the one who keeps hold of the ladle steadies the rest.
Claims about it
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Gate 51 of Human Design, at 15.125° to 20.75° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 51.
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 震 Zhèn 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.
