震 Thunder
Upper trigram: Thunder (thunder) · Lower trigram: Thunder (thunder)
Shock — stay grounded; the jolt also awakens.
Modern interpretation
Shock is here or coming. Do not freeze: the thunder startles, but it also wakes everything up. Keep your footing, steady your breath, and use the jolt as momentum. What shakes you can also move you forward.
The Judgment · 卦辞
亨。震来虩虩，笑言哑哑，震惊百里，不丧匕鬯。
“Kăn gives the intimation of ease and development. When (the time of) movement (which it indicates) comes, (the subject of the hexagram) will be found looking out with apprehension, and yet smiling and talking cheerfully. When the movement (like a crash of thunder) terrifies all within a hundred lî, he will be (like the sincere worshipper) who is not (startled into) letting go his ladle and (cup of) sacrificial spirits.” — 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.
震来虩虩，后笑言哑哑，吉。
“The first line, undivided, shows its subject, when the movement approaches, looking out and around with apprehension, and afterwards smiling and talking cheerfully. There will be good fortune.”
震来厉，亿丧贝，跻于九陵，勿逐，七日得。
“The second line, divided, shows its subject, when the movement approaches, in a position of peril. He judges it better to let go the articles (in his possession), and to ascend a very lofty height. There is no occasion for him to pursue after (the things he has let go) ; in seven days he will find them.”
震苏苏，震行无眚。
“The third line, divided, shows its subject distraught amid the startling movements going on. If those movements excite him to (right) action, there will be no mistake.”
震遂泥。
“The fourth line, undivided, shows its subject, amid the startling movements, supinely sinking (deeper) in the mud.”
震往来，厉，意无丧，有事。
“The fifth line, divided, shows its subject going and coming amidst the startling movements (of the time), and always in peril ; but perhaps he will not incur loss, and find business (which he can accomplish).”
震索索，视矍矍，征凶。震不于其躬，于其邻，无咎。婚媾有言。
“The topmost line, divided, shows its subject, amidst the startling movements (of the time), in breathless dismay and looking round him with trembling apprehension. If he take action, there will be evil. If, while the startling movements have not reached his own person and his neighbourhood, (he were to take precautions), there would be no error, though his relatives might (still) speak against him.”
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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