巽 The Gentle
Upper trigram: Wind (wind) · Lower trigram: Wind (wind)
Penetrate softly — gentle persistence where force fails.
Modern interpretation
Be like the wind: consistent, subtle, everywhere. Gentle persistence penetrates where force shatters. Small repeated efforts, applied without drama, will reshape this situation from the inside.
The Judgment · 卦辞
小亨。利有攸往。利见大人。
“Sun intimates that (under the conditions which it denotes) there will be some little attainment and progress. There will be advantage in movement onward in whatever direction. It will be advantageous (also) to see the great man.” — 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.
进退，利武人之贞。
“The first line, divided, shows its subject (now) advancing, (now) receding. It would be advantageous for him to have the firm correctness of a brave soldier.”
巽在床下，用史巫纷若，吉，无咎。
“The second line, undivided, shows the representative of Sun beneath a couch, and employing diviners and exorcists in a way bordering on confusion. There will be good fortune and no error.”
频巽，吝。
“The third line, undivided, shows its subject penetrating (only) by violent and repeated efforts. There will be occasion for regret.”
悔亡，田获三品。
“The fourth line, divided, shows all occasion for repentance (in its subject) passed away. He takes game for its threefold use in his hunting.”
贞吉，悔亡，无不利，无初有终。先庚三日，后庚三日，吉。
“The fifth line, undivided, shows that with firm correctness there will be good fortune (to its subject). All occasion for repentance will disappear, and all his movements will be advantageous. There may have been no (good) beginning, but there will be a (good) end. Three days before making any changes, (let him give notice of them) ; and three days after, (let him reconsider them). There will (thus) be good fortune.”
巽在床下，丧其资斧，贞凶。
“The sixth line, undivided, shows the representative of penetration beneath a couch, and having lost the axe with which he executed his decisions. However firm and correct he may (try to) be, there will be evil.”
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.
Start free reading