Upper Trigram
兌 Duì
Lake — Joyous
Lower Trigram
坤 Kūn
Earth — Receptive
Classical Texts
The Judgment
Success. The king approaches his temple. It furthers one to see the great man. Persistence furthers. Great offerings bring good fortune. It furthers one to undertake something. Where people are gathered, religious forces are needed. But there must also be a human leader as the center. To bring others together, a leader must first be collected within himself. Only collective moral force can unite the world. Great times of unification leave great achievements behind them.
The Lines
Line 1
Sincere but not to the end—sometimes confusion, sometimes gathering. If you call out, one grasp of the hand from the leader turns away all distress. You waver in decision because you're in a large group and allow yourself to be influenced. Don't be led astray. Attach yourself to the leader.
Line 2
Letting yourself be drawn brings good fortune and remains blameless. If sincere, even a small offering suffices. Make no arbitrary choice. Secret forces lead together those who belong together. Yield to this attraction. Where inner relationships exist, no great formalities are necessary.
Line 3
Gathering together amid sighs. Nothing furthers. Going is without blame. Slight humiliation. You want to unite but others have already formed a group—you remain isolated. Ally yourself resolutely with someone nearer the center who can help gain admission. Somewhat humiliating, but not a mistake.
Line 4
Great good fortune. No blame. Gathering people in the name of your ruler, not striving for personal advantage, working unselfishly for general unity. Success; everything as it should be.
Line 5
Having position in the gathering brings no blame. If some are not yet sincere, sublime and enduring persistence is needed. Then remorse disappears. Some gather around you not from confidence but merely because of your influential position. Deal with them by gaining their confidence through steadfastness and intensified devotion to duty. Secret mistrust is gradually overcome.
Line 6
Lamenting and sighing, floods of tears. No blame. You would like to ally yourself with another but your good intentions are misunderstood. This is the right course—it may cause the other to come to their senses, achieving the alliance painfully missed.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 45 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.
蒙慶受福，有所獲得。不利出城，病人困棘。
Receiving blessings and fortune, there are gains to be had. Yet it is ill to venture beyond the walls; the sick man is trapped among thorns.
Read full commentary ↓
Lake upon earth remains lake upon earth, Gathering unchanged. Blessed with grace and receiving fortune, there is something gained. But it is not favorable to leave the city walls; the sick person is trapped in thorns. The verse splits cleanly between inside and outside: within the gathered space, blessings arrive; beyond its walls, danger waits. The sick person's predicament intensifies this: illness pins one to a place even as the place itself becomes confining rather than protecting. From Gathering to itself, the transformation is stasis. The community sustains those within but cannot extend its protection beyond its own boundaries. What gathers here cannot be exported, and those who need to move find themselves held fast by the very forces that should help them.
中文注释
澤上於地，萃也，變而仍為萃。蒙慶受福——承蒙恩澤，有所獲得。不利出城——出城則不利，城外有險。病人困棘——患者困於荊棘之中，動彈不得。詩意截然兩分：城內有福，城外有禍；聚合之處有庇護，離散之途有荊棘。病者之困境更深一層：疾病使人不得不留於原地，而原地之聚合漸成桎梏。從萃至萃，聚合凝固為靜止。社群能護其內而不能及其外，聚合之力不可輸出。需要離開者卻被困住，保護反成囚禁。
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Lake (兌)
Same lower trigram: Earth (坤)