Hexagram 27: Yi

Mountain over Thunder · 山雷颐 · Tendency: Auspicious

Structure

• Number: 27 (King Wen sequence)
• Symbol: ䷚
• Upper trigram: Gen (Mountain)
• Lower trigram: Zhen (Thunder)
• Lines: yang yin yin yin yin yang (bottom to top)

The statement

贞吉。观颐，自求口实。

——《周易》

What this hexagram indicates

This hexagram reminds you to pay attention to 'nurturing' issues, including body, speech, resources, and long-term habits. Suitable for moderating diet, speaking carefully, and cultivating stable abilities. Don't just focus on immediate gratification, nor be consumed by unhealthy information or relationships.

A Buddhist reading

Yi (Nourishment) is about feeding, and Ouyi Zhixu takes it as nurturing the embryo of sagehood. Nourishment must be upright, he insists: feeding without rectitude, or rectitude without feeding, is no good either way. So look in two directions, at what the sages of old nourished and at what you are putting in your own mouth. He adds that there is no separate technique for benefiting others besides nourishing yourself rightly; get that right and the transforming influence is already there. Care with speech and restraint with food he sums up as knowing where to stop, which he calls the best gate into right nourishment. The first line, abandoning its own sacred tortoise to envy the food in another mouth, is the sorriest case.

After Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655), whose Chan commentary on the Changes reads each hexagram as a stage of practice.

The statement is quoted from the Book of Changes, which is in the public domain. The English reading on this page was prepared for this library.

Related hexagrams

• Previous: Hexagram 26: Da Xu
• Next / Opposite: Hexagram 28: Da Guoevery line changed to its opposite
• Nuclear: Hexagram 2: Kunlines two to four below, three to five above

Related

• Liu Yao Divination ChartLiu Yao casts a hexagram about one specific matter and reads its structure. Unlike BaZi or Zi Wei, which describe a person, Liu Yao describes how a situation stands at a particular moment. This page walks through the full process from casting to attribution.
• Mei Hua Yi Shu CalculatorMei Hua Yi Shu is traditionally attributed to Shao Yong. What sets it apart is how freely it casts: a time, a spoken number, a direction or something noticed in passing will all serve. It attaches no stems and no relatives, reading the trigrams directly. This page covers casting through to the subject and object.