Upper Trigram
艮 Gèn
Mountain — Stillness
Lower Trigram
離 Lí
Fire — Clinging
Classical Texts
The Judgment
Success. In small matters, it is favorable to undertake something. Grace brings success, but ornament is not essence. Use beauty sparingly, for little things. Major decisions require more than elegance.
The Lines
Line 1
Adorning the toes. Leaving the carriage to walk. When even the lowest parts receive attention, you might abandon the vehicle of ease for direct contact with earth. Grace that returns to simplicity.
Line 2
Adorning the beard. The beard follows the chin—ornament depends on what it adorns. Decoration has no independent existence; it serves what it attaches to.
Line 3
Graceful and moist. Constant perseverance brings good fortune. Beauty maintained, soft and living. If this is sustained, fortune follows. Freshness preserved.
Line 4
Grace or plainness? A white horse, flying. Not robbers—suitors. Initial doubt about whether the approach is threat or invitation. Uncertainty resolves into connection.
Line 5
Grace in the hill gardens. The bolt of silk is meager. Humiliation, but good fortune in the end. Simple offering, almost inadequate—yet sincere. The humble gift ultimately succeeds.
Line 6
Simple white grace. No blame. At the height, ornament becomes simplicity again. Pure white needs nothing added. The return to unadorned truth.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 22 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.
政不暴虐，鳳凰來舍；四時順節，民安其居。
Governance neither cruel nor oppressive; the phoenix comes to dwell. The four seasons follow their proper order; the people rest secure in their homes.
Read full commentary ↓
Fire beneath the mountain mirrors itself — Grace transforms into Grace, the hexagram unchanged. When governance is not tyrannical, the phoenix comes to dwell. The four seasons follow their proper rhythm, and the people rest secure in their homes. The phoenix appears only under a sage ruler whose virtue radiates without coercion. This self-referential verse captures Grace's highest potential: adornment as the natural expression of good order, not artifice imposed upon chaos. When the source and target are identical, the message is: this pattern, fully realized, needs no transformation. Civilized beauty at its best is not decoration but the visible form of virtue — the phoenix choosing to settle where it senses authentic grace.
中文注释
山下有火，賁之自照。政不暴虐——政令不殘暴。鳳凰來舍——鳳凰來此棲居。四時順節——四季依序運行。民安其居——百姓安居樂業。鳳凰唯聖世而現，明君之德自然輻射，不假強制。源卦與變卦同為賁，此自指之詩道出賁之最高境界：文飾為善治之自然表達，非強加於亂世之人工。卦變為自身，寓意明確：此格局圓滿實現，無須變化。文明之美非裝飾，乃德之可見形態——鳳凰擇真正之文采而棲。
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Mountain (艮)