Upper Trigram
艮 Gèn
Mountain — Stillness
Lower Trigram
艮 Gèn
Mountain — Stillness
Classical Texts
The Judgment
Keeping his back still so that he no longer feels his body. He goes into his courtyard and does not see his people. No blame. True quiet means keeping still when the time has come to keep still, and going forward when the time has come to go forward. Rest and movement in agreement with the demands of the time—thus there is light in life. When the movement of the spinal nerves is brought to a standstill, the ego with its restlessness disappears. When calm, you may turn to the outside world. You no longer see struggle and tumult but have that peace of mind needed for understanding the great laws of the universe.
The Lines
Line 1
Keeping his toes still. No blame. Continued persistence furthers. Halting before you have even begun to move. The beginning is the time of few mistakes—still in harmony with primal innocence. Not yet influenced by obscuring interests and desires, you see things intuitively as they really are. Halt at the beginning, and you find the right way. But persisting firmness is needed to keep from drifting irresolutely.
Line 2
Keeping his calves still. He cannot rescue the one he follows. His heart is not glad. The leg cannot move independently; it depends on the body's movement. If a leg is suddenly stopped while the whole body moves vigorously, the continuing motion will cause a fall. The same is true of serving a master stronger than yourself. You are swept along; even though you halt on the path of wrongdoing, you can no longer check the other in their powerful movement.
Line 3
Keeping his hips still. Making his sacrum stiff. Dangerous. The heart suffocates. Enforced quiet. The restless heart is subdued by forcible means. But fire smothered changes into acrid smoke that suffocates. In meditation and concentration, don't try to force results. Calmness must develop naturally out of inner composure. Artificial rigidity leads to unwholesome results.
Line 4
Keeping his trunk still. No blame. Though able to keep the ego with its thoughts and impulses at rest, you are not yet quite liberated from its dominance. Nonetheless, keeping the heart at rest is an important function, leading in the end to complete elimination of egotistic drives. Though not yet free from dangers of doubt and unrest, this frame of mind is not a mistake.
Line 5
Keeping his jaws still. The words have order. Remorse disappears. In a dangerous situation where you are not adequate, the inclination is to be very free with talk and presumptuous jokes. But injudicious speech easily leads to situations giving much cause for regret. If reserved in speech, your words take ever more definite form, and every occasion for regret vanishes.
Line 6
Noblehearted keeping still. Good fortune. Consummation of the effort to attain tranquility. At rest not merely in small, circumscribed ways regarding matters of detail, but with a general resignation regarding life as a whole. This confers peace and good fortune in relation to every individual matter.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 52 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.
君孤獨處，單弱无輔，名曰困苦。
The lord sits alone in solitude, weak and without support; its name is called hardship and suffering.
Read full commentary ↓
Twin mountains stand doubled into absolute stillness — the same hexagram returns to itself. The ruler dwells in isolation, alone and without support; this condition is called suffering. When Gen transforms into Gen, nothing changes: the mountain remains the mountain, and the person who stops remains stopped. There is no release, no new energy, no complementary force to break the stasis. From Keeping Still to Keeping Still, the image is pure recursion. The verse names this plainly: solitude without allies, weakness without reinforcement, the name of which is hardship. The mountain's great virtue is knowing when to stop, but when stopping is the only option and the only outcome, virtue curdles into mere endurance.
中文注释
兼山為艮，艮歸於艮——同卦自返，無物流轉。君孤獨處，單弱無輔，名曰困苦。艮化艮，無一事改變：山仍是山，止者仍止。無新生之力、無互補之勢可打破此僵局。從艮至艮，純粹之自我重複，如回音在空谷中漸弱而不傳。詩直言不諱：獨而無友、弱而無援，其名曰苦。艮之大德在知止，然當止是唯一之選項亦是唯一之結果時，美德遂化為純然之忍受而已。
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Mountain (艮)
Same lower trigram: Mountain (艮)