Meaning
Whole, broken, whole, broken, whole, broken from the bottom up: every odd place holds a yang line and every even place a yin line, as the commentators say they should, and no other hexagram is arranged so. The trigrams put water above fire, the pot on the flame, each in a position to act on the other. 既濟 means already across, the river forded, and our title says just that; it happens also to be the title another I Ching site uses, since both translate the same two characters. The Judgment is modest about completion: progress in small matters, firmness, good fortune at the beginning and disorder at the end.
The Image draws the lesson of precaution: the superior man thinks of the trouble that may come and guards against it while things are still in order. In our own reading, 既濟 is the state right after success, which the tradition treats not as an ending but as the start of a new need for care.
The lines
The first line drags its wheel and gets its tail wet, and is blameless; the second has lost the screen of her carriage and is told not to chase it, for it returns in seven days. The third recalls a king who took three years to subdue a distant region; the fourth has "rags provided against any leak (in his boat)", in Legge's English, and is on guard all day. The fifth sets the eastern neighbour's great offering against the western neighbour's small one, and sincerity is what counts. At the top, the head goes under.
Its pair, inverse, opposite and nuclear hexagram are all one: 未濟, hexagram 64.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 既濟 when the year, month and day leave 6 on eight, which puts 坎 water above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 3, which puts 離 fire 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 39 蹇 Jiǎn, Obstruction
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 5 需 Xū, Waiting
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 3 屯 Zhūn, First Shoots
- Line 4 (六四) moving: becomes 49 革 Gé, Changing the Hide
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 36 明夷 Míng Yí, Brightness Wounded
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 37 家人 Jiā Rén, The Household
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)
- 離 bright, attached below; 坎 sinking, perilous above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- middle daughter below, middle son above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- eyes and pheasant below; ears and pig above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Fire 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: 64 未濟 Wèi Jì, Not Yet Across; every line flipped: 64 未濟 Wèi Jì, Not Yet Across sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 63, from 341.375° to 347° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Already Across: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 既濟 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Kî Zî intimates progress and success in small matters.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Fire with water above it; the superior man thinks of the evil that may come and guards against it beforehand.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 坎 above when the year, month and day leave 6 on eight, 離 below when the same total with the hour leaves 3.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 63 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Water over fire, everything in its place: the crossing has been made, and since order at the start turns to disorder at the end, the care goes on after the success.
Claims about it
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Gate 63 of Human Design, at 341.375° to 347° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 63.
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 既濟 Jì Jì 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.
