There are just two 'outer mountain' hexagrams in the Upper Canon: 41, Decreasing, and 52, Stilling.

Hexagram 41, Decreasing

The Oracle

Hexagram 41 is Sun 損: decrease, damage, harm, weakening. So the words of the oracle that define it are startling -

'Decreasing has truth and confidence.
From the source, good fortune.
Not a mistake, there can be constancy.
Fruitful to have somewhere to go.
How to use this?
Two gui-bowls may be used for the offering.'

Hexagram 41, Oracle

損有孚 - decrease has - or is - fu, truth and confidence, the state of rapport and spiritual connection. That's quite a radical assertion. It brings good fortune from the source; it does not mean anything is wrong or broken; with this open channel to the spirits, it supports the enduring connection of zhen, constancy.

All this is possible because this decrease also means offering up. It's a kind of emptying out that clears the channel. (LiSe says succinctly that Decreasing's space is what makes the book better than the film, because it leaves room for your imagination.)

It opens a space for future developments, too. It's fruitful to have somewhere to go - to have a reason for the offering, and to be outward-looking: focussed not on what you're giving up, but on what's next.

This attitude is the perfect opposite of Hexagram 23, where it's 'fruitless to have somewhere to go.' Stripping Away is not the time to think about why this is happening or where it might lead - you just have to undergo the loss completely, and then may come a time to think about moving on. (With 24, Returning - which is the nuclear hexagram of 41.)

The offering needs only two gui. These are bronze bowls, probably originally modelled on a bamboo basket, used for grain offerings. All the examples I've found online, including those with inscriptions marking their importance, are less than a foot tall. In other words, this is a modest, undramatic, affordable offering.

Where's the mountain?

It's not so hard to see the lake in Hexagram 41. Its name, to begin with, shows a round vessel -

- that we could say is like a lake. Though of course, there are hexagrams (18, 42, 50) with vessels in their names but no lakes attached; Yi is a lot more than the sum of its trigrams.

And then there are those gui tureens in the Oracle text, also somewhat lake-like. And since dui means not only lake but also a fertile marsh or even a rice paddy, vessels specifically for grain offerings are a very good fit.

So where's the mountain? I think it's in the idea of offering up, a destination for our offering - really, just the sense that there is another dimension beyond the decrease and weakening, a 'somewhere to go'. Mountains are sacred, after all. And then fu, 'truth and confidence', lies in the relationship between lake and mountain - which makes me imagine the mountain reflected in the lake.

The Image

The Image authors have a very clear sense of what this mountain does:

'Below the mountain is the lake. Decreasing.
A noble one curbs anger and restrains desires.'

Hexagram 41, the Image

It 'curbs and restrains'. This is definitely one of those 'lid'-like mountains, containing and blocking - only now, the noble one is using it himself, for deliberate self-control. The great distance between mountain and lake lets the noble one separate his sense of himself from his emotions - a development from the 'place to stand' of 27's mountain.

(In the context of the Sequence, this isn't just a picture of repression, though: it's practice to deepen emotional capacity. The lake that forms under the mountain in 41 will be put to good use out in the world in hexagrams 43, 45 and 49.)

How is this a picture of decrease? Tradition says that what is below is diminished to the benefit of what's above (following the idea that Hexagram 41 is formed when the yang third line of 11 moves up to the sixth place): the lake evaporate and enriches the mountain.

Only… I can't help thinking that in practice, surely, if there's a lake at the foot of the mountain, the mountain is probably feeding the lake, not diminishing it. It might be fed by mountain streams, or prevailing winds may mean this is the rainy side of the mountain. As I suggested in my book, this could be a picture of mutuality: evaporating water from the lake greens the mountain; the mountain creates the lake basin.

What is decreased, in this picture, is movement. Water naturally flows, but here it's gathered and contained. The noble one's emotional volatility is decreased. Social interaction might be diminished, too - shrunk down to essentials.

Instead of movement, we get space for reflection: a 'lid' mountain containing and creating the lake below.

Hexagram 52, Stilling

The final outer mountain comes joined with an inner mountain, in Hexagram 52, Stilling. Mountain is the opposite of lake, so this is not about separating and reflecting - it's exactly not an inner dialogue.

'Stilling your back,
Not grasping your self.
Moving in your courtyard,
Not seeing your people.
Not a mistake.'

Hexagram 52, the Oracle

You're not 'grasping' or not catching yourself - the same verb that would be used for catching game in a hunt, or capturing a fugitive. The character contains a dog for hunting, and a hand catching a bird -

You don't catch yourself like a hunted animal, and you don't see your people in your courtyard. The perfect parallelism of this text evokes the hexagram's two mountains: inside, your back and your body, not captured; outside, the space where you live, without connection or conversation. Inner and outer worlds are both Stilled and quiet - and, the oracle says, this is no mistake.

The Image -

'Joined mountains. Stilling.
A noble one in his thoughts does not leave his place.'

Hexagram 52, the Image

- says that the mountains are 兼 jian: combined, joined, concurrent, doubled. The noble one is thinking, not acting, and his thoughts are like the mountain - contained, secure, within the outer mountain that defines 'his place'.

So there is joined stillness, inside and out. The contrast with 41, where the outer mountain puts a lid on roiling inner emotions, is emphatic: the noble one now is joined, not split.

Does this tell a story?

We've come a long way from Hexagram 4, where the mountain covered, protected and mentored the young fool. Is there a story we could tell with these hexagrams? Probably there are many… but one that occurs to me is a journey from separation towards unity. There's the young fool and the sage, and 'nurturing character' (in hexagrams 4 and 18); then mountain-mindset lets the noble one see the limits of enlightened government in 22, and by 26 he's teaching himself. From there, 27's mountain can be a standpoint for self-awareness; 41's, a means of self-control. And it culminates at 52, with inner and outer selves joined together.

…and in readings?

When your reading has an outer mountain, it may help to think about…

A lid - what there is in the situation that stops/hinders you, and whether that might not also be protecting, nurturing or teaching you.

And along similar lines, a container - how the situation that limits you also defines your scope, delineates your field of action.

Whether the situation with its demands offers you a teacher, or mentor, or just a place to stand and see from.

How the trigrams work together. (Always the key!) Can you see how the mountain, the solid reality of the situation, is infused with the qualities of the inner trigram, so its nature is changed? Or how it lends form to the inner trigram, giving it solid presence?

…or maybe something completely different, because each trigram relationship is unique, and each one contains many possible trigram pictures…

I Ching Community discussion

CJ Liu kindly invited me to be interviewed on her show, and here's the result.

(I just want to reassure you that CJ did get a better reading from me than you see here! We talked about her reading for an extra half-hour or so in private, when she didn't have to split her focus between it and the demands of constructing an interview, and I sent her my notes afterwards. Reading fully delivered, I hope.)

I Ching Community discussion

Two more hexagrams with mountains on top, two more intriguing trigram pictures…

Hexagram 26, Great Taming

Hexagram 26 is 'Great Taming'; 'taming', chu, originally means simply to rear domestic animals. Great Taming - rearing big animals, like the horse, bullock and boar in the moving line texts. By extension, it comes to mean nurturing, providing for, cultivating, and (with an added 'grass' element) accumulate or store up.

Tradition says - wisely - that chu is what the mountain is doing. This is something we can recognise from previous 'mountain-outside' hexagrams like 4 or 18: mountain above acts like a lid, containing and also nurturing the inner trigram. When xun, wind, tries to contain and nurture heaven, the result is Small Taming, Hexagram 9; the massive solidity of mountain above makes for Great Taming. The form of the hexagram makes me think of a fully-charged battery:

The Oracle

'Great taming,
Constancy bears fruit.
Not eating at home, good fortune.
Fruitful to cross the great river.'

Not eating at home, crossing the great river - how come Great Taming, with that outer mountain representing stillness and stopping, has such an adventurous oracle?

Stephen Field has a direct answer to this: he calls the hexagram 'Greater Stock' and translates as 'these are not to be eaten at home.' Big animals are for sacrifices, not your cooking pot.

A traditional interpretation, familiar from Wilhelm, is that 'not eating at home' means to 'earn one's bread by entering upon public office.' Likewise, Wang Bi (in Lynn's translation) says that this livestock is used to feed worthy people, 'which frees them from having to eat at home.'

A picture emerges: this is not just for you; this is not for hoarding. Now you are freed from subsistence, you can dedicate your resources to a higher cause. As Bradford Hatcher put it,

'Not dining at home, and crossing great streams, puts us in a larger world, serving higher powers.'

So in this light, how could we imagine heaven under the mountain? Instead of thinking of heaven's power stored up, we could try imagining the mountain's boundary as much further away. All of heaven is on the inside; your world has grown; your possibilities are expanding. 'The sky's the limit'?

The Image

The Image authors saw heaven in the mountain as something like a library:

'Heaven dwells in the centre of the mountain. Great Taming.
A noble one uses the many annals of ancient words and past deeds,
And cultivates his character.'

In Hexagram 22, the mountain lent outer form to inner illumination, creating good day-to-day government. Here, it's lending form to inner qian: heaven, creative power, and natural law. That makes for a store of enduring wisdom - books, whose boundaries expand in other dimensions, like imagination and time.

(Building storehouses for libraries of records had been Chinese practice since Shang times - and there would also be a famous mediaeval Library Cave.)

The noble one, by the way, is chu-ing his character - nurturing, husbanding, providing for it; this is the hexagram name, used as a verb. By engaging with the ancient texts, he enlarges his own capacity.

We could also imagine that the mountains, because they are ancient and enduring, contain the laws of heaven at their heart, in the secrets of their formation. China has many sacred mountains, climbed to get closer to heaven. There are hints here of mountain mystery. Again, it's not just that the mountain 'contains' greatness, but that heaven infuses mountain, increasing the inner space, making the container great.

Hexagram 27, Nourishment

From heaven to thunder

From 26 to 27 is one of those steps in the Sequence made by changing a single trigram: from heaven under the mountain, to thunder. Absolute truth and natural law have become active energy - which I think is another way of saying that this has become personal, 'your own quest' for nourishment. As so often, these trigrams are an 'energy diagram': contained active energy, held within the confines of the self.

The Sequence itself remembers that 26 is about rearing big animals, and says simply,

'Things are tamed, and so there can be nurturing, and so Nourishment follows. Nourishment means nurturing.'

I want to show you the character for 'nurturing' or 'providing for', yang not because it's especially revealing, but just because I like it. It shows a hand bringing food to an enormous sheep:

The name of Hexagram 27, yi 頤, originally means 'jaws' as well as 'nourishing' - though thanks to Spielberg, we can't very well call it that. You can see the jaws in the trigram picture -

Not only does this look like a tooth-filled maw, but we have a static upper trigram, mountain, and mobile lower trigram, thunder: the upper and lower jaw.

The Oracle

'Nourishment: constancy brings good fortune.
See the jaws,
Your own quest for something real to fill your mouth.'

See the jaws, it says, encouraging us to notice that this hexagram is a picture. And I think the 'seeing' also extends to the next line: see yourself, and how you seek something real to fill your mouth.

Where are thunder and mountain in this? I think 'your quest' would be thunder, that sets things in motion. And then the mountain becomes a standpoint from which we can see this. When you cast hexagram 27, you're encouraged to see yourself in this picture: your drive, your hunger, specifically for something real.

The idea of a mountain for 'seeing' begins with Hexagram 20, which is the mountain trigram writ large, with each line doubled -

This makes me think that the name of Hexagram 20 is used here quite deliberately. See!

The Image

'Below the mountain is thunder. Nourishment.
The noble one reflects on his words in conversation,
And is discriminating about what he eats and drinks.'

As the Oracle implied, the mountain provides a standpoint to see from. It's a still point for awareness of this constant motion of conversing and consuming: a place to listen to the echoes of our conversation, or a way to set limits to our consumption. ('Discriminating' here is the name of Hexagram 60: measuring, subdividing, limiting. It manages to suggest both taste testing - 'bitter measures do not allow constancy' - and also portion control!)

So as we come to the end of the 20s, and of the Upper Canon, mountain has contained and nurtured, mentored and governed, and now starts to provide a place for self-awareness.

I Ching Community discussion

I've just added a new page to the 'Learn' section of the site, introducing the fan yao: what this line is, what it shows you, and how to use it in readings. Also something of a health warning, as it can be quite misleading if you're not clear on how it relates to the answer you cast.

The unusual 'mini course' layout on that page is because it's an excerpt from a longer course, one I just completed a few days ago, on line pathways. These are a journey that starts from each moving line you cast and travels through three related lines including the fan yao, letting you explore your cast line's themes and resonances from new angles.

You wouldn't want to get into the line pathway for every line of every reading - this is very much a tool for deep dives into the kind of reading you want to spend more time with. And I would definitely recommend you make your way through the Foundations Course and also the 'Quick Insights' course on paired hexagrams before you embark on this one - it'll make a lot more sense that way. Happily, you can find all three courses in the Change Circle Library - and if you're not already a member, you are very welcome to join.

I Ching Community discussion

A bucket-full of cold water to start with

I'm not normally very enthusiastic about I Ching cards, simply because the oracle was never designed to be consulted that way, and it shows. Where tarot creates meaning with the relationship between a card and its position in the spread, the Yi creates meaning with the relationships between hexagrams, and hence with changing lines - anything from none to six of them, each possibility with its own likelihood of showing up in a reading. (You can watch all those probabilities unfolding if you cast a reading here.) We all know that a reading with six lines changing is something strange and unusual, that makes us sit up and take notice.

All of that richness is accessible simply and straightforwardly with three coins - and there just isn't an equally simple way to access it by drawing cards. And that's before we even start on the issue of access to the actual Yijing itself.

So... given a set of I Ching cards, I'm predisposed to be lukewarm at best.

...and yet...

These tiny 'I Ching art cards' that Shenpen gave me are exceptionally lovely. You can see a full gallery of all the images here, though the colours come out subtler and more muted in print. And so somehow, here I find myself recommending an I Ching card set.

Things I love

The images are mostly abstract, or almost-abstract - there is no awkward effort to squeeze in imagery from the text, nor yet formulaic application of the trigrams. I appreciate this, because it shows me something new about each hexagram. Also, they're beautiful. Often, the image will make me stop, breathe, sit with it and take it in: it's a new way to spend time with the reading, a new way to connect.

There is no text on the cards - no hexagram name or number, and (thank goodness) no 'keywords'. Just the hexagram itself on one side, and the image on the other. Shen refers people to her website to look up their hexagram, and assumes you'll use the cards in conjunction with a book - as she puts it, they provide "a 'right-brain' route in when accompanied by a written interpretation." This might work less well for a newcomer to the Yi, I don't know, but if you're familiar with the book, this is a wonderfully simple and uncluttered way to engage with a reading.

The cards are tiny, which actually suits me very nicely as my hands are pretty small: 6cm cards are a good fit, where big fancy decks are awkward. But there is also a bigger and sturdier edition on its way.

And what about the whole sticky question of how to consult with them?

Well... you don't have to, of course. You can cast in the usual way, find your card, spend time with it and carry it with you. But Shen has also come up with the most elegant solution I've seen to using the cards for casting.

She doesn’t attempt to replicate the complexity of a normal reading with its full range of possibilities, any more than she tries to replace the book. Instead, your answer can have a single moving line, or it can be unchanging. I've never seen a single-moving-line method that allows for unchanging readings before, and that always strikes me as a bit daft: here, let's simplify readings, by preventing Yi from giving the simplest kind of reading there is.

So here's Shen's method. Your cards come with a bundle of seven tiny sticks. You draw a single card for your primary hexagram, and then draw a stick. If it's smooth, your hexagram is unchanging; otherwise, you count the number of notches carved on the stick to see which line is changing. That's all. (And that's certainly the shortest explanation I've ever written of a casting method.)

A tiny edition

One other thing you should know - this is a limited edition of 250 decks, and I think the pencilled note on my set says 73/250. You can learn more, see all the images, and order your own copy if you so wish, here.

I Ching Community discussion

I talked in a previous post about gen, mountain, as the outer trigram of Hexagrams 4 and 18. There, it 'nurtures de', with a dual obstructing and protecting function that feels something like mentorship.

The next appearances of mountain outside come in the 20s, a series of hexagram pairs with inner thunder, outer mountain.

Hexagram 22, Beauty

'Beauty' and 'Making beautiful'

Hexagram 22 is Bi 賁, meaning 'beautiful' and 'lustrous' - especially something made beautiful, like the gleam of a well-groomed horse's coat. The same character also means 'ardent' and 'energetic', which is reminiscent of the prospective groom in its line texts: beautifying his feet, oiling his hair and harnessing his best white horses to the carriage.

I also picked up an interesting factlet from Scott Davis: bi was also once a ceremony or prayer petitioning for good harvests or for a child. Perhaps you make things beautiful for this offering?

The key idea: this is not a thank-offering, but a petition - like courtship is a petition. This isn't beauty for its own sake, but for communication.

The Oracle: small yield from having somewhere to go

The Oracle says,

'Beauty. Creating success.
Small yield from having somewhere to go.'

This is the Yi's first mention of yield from having somewhere to go - places to go, things to do, a journey to undertake. And sure enough, there's a journey in the lines: not a grand adventure or great military expedition, but on a smaller scale, the groom fetching his bride. That's his reason to make things beautiful.

Why is the yield only a small one? Because, I think, it's for a single, limited purpose. The groom's finery will have done its job if it helps to bring about one wedding. This is not about changing the world.

Fire under the mountain

In trigram terms: inner fire is lighting up the flank of the mountain. This isn't the same as light that spreads over the whole earth. That kind of light - daylight - is in Hexagram 35 (fire above earth), and it's important for what we can do in the light, not for its own sake. But the mountain catches the light, is made beautiful by it - and stops it from spreading further. It represents an end for the light, in both senses of the word: its purpose, and also its limit.

The Image paints a trigram-picture of civil society:

‘Below the mountain is fire. Beauty.
A noble one brings light to the many affairs of government, but does not venture to pass judgement.’

'Bringing light' clearly corresponds to the inner trigram - li, fire and light - and so the 'affairs of government' must be the mountain: the form and rules of society, infused with the light of intelligence. And I think 'not venturing' is also the mountain: setting limits to one's scope and ambition, realising that the light of our understanding doesn't reach everywhere.

There's an interesting alternative view, though, in RJ Lynn's translation:

The noble man clearly understands all the different aspects of governance, and so dares not reduce it to a matter of passing criminal judgement.

R.J. Lynn, The Classic of Changes

He's following the interpretation of Wang Bi:

One should curb others by means of the enlightenment provided by pattern; one cannot use the coercive force of punishment to do this.

So it's not that Beauty is inadequate for passing judgement, but that passing judgement is insufficient for civilisation. This expands on the idea of the Sequence…

'Things cannot carelessly unite and be completed, and so Beauty follows. Beauty means adorning.'

…that Hexagram 21, Biting Through, is insufficient on its own. No-one is married just because they get together: the 'beautifying', the ceremony, makes the marriage. Likewise, you don't have government just because you punish people: civilisation is a working whole, and this kind of performative ceremony, deliberately making things beautiful and expressive, creates it.

So 22's mountain sets a limit and embodies purpose, and also has a hint of the mountain-as-mentor - only on a larger scale, as an enlightened culture whose institutions can be brought to life by the light of awareness.

Hexagram 23, Stripping Away

The Sequence in trigrams

The progression from hexagram 22 to 23, Stripping Away, is a lot like that from 12 to 13. The outer trigram stays the same, and the inner trigram changes - from earth to fire, there, and from fire to earth, here. And here as there, this is marked by a pointed change in the text of the Oracle, from

'Beauty. Creating success.
Small yield from having somewhere to go.'

to

'Stripping away.
Fruitless to have somewhere to go.'

When fire is lit under heaven, the noble one's constancy begins to bear fruit. And when the fire goes out under the mountain, there's no longer any yield in having somewhere to go.

The dynamism of 22 ('ardent, energetic') has gone; vitality has been removed from form, so all that's left are the empty surfaces - the mountain itself, sitting on the earth. Fire lent its energy to the mountain, but earth, if anything, takes it away. Fire illuminates, burns and moves; earth receives, or undergoes. The trigram picture of Stripping Away is of a mountain above the plains, eroding - nothing to do with your insights or intentions: it just happens.

The Image

So what could the Image authors, who always found a way for a 'noble one' to participate in the energy of the trigrams, make of this? Well… what if the mountain erodes generously?

'Mountain rests on the earth. Stripping Away.
The heights are generous, and there are tranquil homes below.'

Erosion seen this way - mineral-rich soil for the fields in the valley - is no loss at all.

A more normal way to translate 'the heights' would be as 'those above' - meaning the nobility, those who are 'above' others socially. Still, the words used are very simple - 上 and 下, above and below. This is the only hexagram where the Image doesn't explicitly name a person - noble one, ancient kings or prince - as its protagonist, and I'd assume that depersonalisation is quite deliberate. Instead of putting yourself in the shoes of the noble one, you're invited to imagine yourself as whole classes of people - or just as a mountain and a valley.

The nurturing and protecting mountain has also become generous. You could even say it works rather like Hexagram 22, with the mountain infused by the spirit of the inner trigram: there, awareness; here, generous service and support.

I Ching Community discussion