Hexagram 35: Jin

Fire over Earth · 火地晋 · Tendency: Auspicious

Structure

• Number: 35 (King Wen sequence)
• Symbol: ䷢
• Upper trigram: Li (Fire)
• Lower trigram: Kun (Earth)
• Lines: yin yin yin yang yin yang (bottom to top)

The statement

康侯用锡马蕃庶，昼日三接。

——《周易》

What this hexagram indicates

This hexagram indicates an opportunity for upward movement, progress, and being seen. It is suitable for showcasing achievements, striving for a position, or advancing public projects. The further you go, the more you need to stay clear-headed—use the light to illuminate rather than to show off, and avoid provoking resentment through rashness.

A Buddhist reading

Jin (Advance) is light emerging above the earth, and Ouyi Zhixu turns it inward. Original awakening is the bright virtue; the effort of beginning to awaken is the shining; since nothing exists outside mind, the shining is your own. Stillness and wisdom must arise together, and calming must be inseparable from insight, before one truly cleaves to the great light. The real nature of ignorance is buddha-nature, so ignorance turned around simply becomes brightness, and merit and wisdom deepen layer upon layer. His sharpest image is the flying squirrel of the fourth line: a lowly rodent passing under the name of a white rabbit, exactly like someone without virtue who occupies high office.

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 34: Da Zhuang
• Next / Inverted: Hexagram 36: Ming Yithe whole figure turned upside down
• Opposite: Hexagram 5: Xuevery line changed to its opposite
• Nuclear: Hexagram 39: Jianlines 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.