升 Ascending
Upper trigram: Earth (the earth) · Lower trigram: Wind (wind)
Steady rise — like a plant growing, step by step without leaps.
Modern interpretation
Rise gradually: small consistent efforts, no heroic leaps. Like wood growing up through the earth, advancement is slow, natural, and sure. The direction is up — be patient with the pace and relentless with the rhythm.
The Judgment · 卦辞
元亨。用见大人，勿恤。南征吉。
“Shăng indicates that (under its conditions) there will be great progress and success. Seeking by (the qualities implied in it) to meet with the great man, its subject need have no anxiety. Advance to the south will be fortunate.” — James Legge, The Yî King (1882)
The six lines · 爻辞
Read from the bottom line upward. Each line pairs the received Chinese text with Legge's English translation.
允升，大吉。
“The first line, divided, shows its subject advancing upwards with the welcome (of those above him). There will be great good fortune.”
孚乃利用禴，无咎。
“The second line, undivided, shows its subject with that sincerity which will make even the (small) offerings of the vernal sacrifice acceptable. There will be no error.”
升虚邑。
“The third line, undivided, shows its subject ascending upwards (as into) an empty city.”
王用亨于岐山，吉，无咎。
“The fourth line, divided, shows its subject employed by the king to present his offerings on mount Khî. There will be good fortune ; there will be no mistake.”
贞吉，升阶。
“The fifth line, divided, shows its subject firmly correct, and therefore enjoying good fortune. He ascends the stairs (with all due ceremony).”
冥升，利于不息之贞。
“The sixth line, divided, shows its subject advancing upwards blindly. Advantage will be found in a ceaseless maintenance of firm correctness.”
About changing lines
In a real I Ching reading, hexagrams are built by casting coins or yarrow stalks six times, bottom line first. Some lines come out “old” (unstable) — an old yin or old yang flips into its opposite, producing a second hexagram that shows where the situation is heading. The changing lines are the moving parts of your answer: read their individual line statements above, and they point to the direction of change.
Ask a question and cast the coins — free, with a plain-English interpretation grounded in the classical text.
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