EN (English)
䷓
Hexagram 20 of 64
Contemplation
觀 · Guān
Wind moving over the earth, touching everything and altering nothing. The hexagram is about observation, and about the fact that whoever observes is also on display.
observation
perspective
example
understanding
- King Wen number
- 20 of 64
- Above
- ☴ Xùn · Wind
- Below
- ☷ Kūn · Earth
- Composition
- Wind over Earth
- Lines, bottom to top
- Broken · broken · broken · broken · solid · solid
- Chinese
- 觀 · Guān
The Judgment
The washing of hands is done and the offering not yet made. Full of trust, they look up.
The pause in a ceremony after the purification and before the sacrifice. The classic locates its whole idea of authority in that suspended, attentive moment.
The Image
The wind moves over the earth: Contemplation. So the ancient kings toured the regions, observed the people, and gave their instruction.
Observation as a job of state. You look first, over the whole territory, and only then say anything.
What it means
Guan is the inversion of hexagram 19, and it turns approach into observation. Two yang lines remain, now at the top, looking down over four yin lines. Wind passes across the earth without changing it, which is what watching does.
The Judgment is one of the strangest images in the book: a ceremony paused between the washing of hands and the offering. Everyone is attentive, nothing has been given yet, and the classic says that this is when trust is at its height. Authority here rests on bearing rather than on action, on being worth watching rather than on doing something.
The lines are arranged by the quality of the view. A child's glance at the surface. A peep through a door crack. Then the third line turns the gaze around: contemplating my own life, and deciding from that whether to go forward or back. The fourth sees a whole culture at its best. The fifth and sixth are nearly identical, and the single character that differs matters, because it moves from examining my own life to examining his: from self-scrutiny to the detached view of someone no longer in the picture.
The hexagram gives no instruction to act. That is deliberate.
In a reading
Contemplation as an answer counsels looking rather than doing. Take the wider view, gather perspective, examine your own conduct before you assess anyone else's.
It also reminds you that you are visible. If the matter involves influence over others, the hexagram's position is that what you are will do more work than what you say, and the third line is the practical one: look honestly, then decide whether to advance or step back.
The six lines
Read a line's text only when the cast made it a moving line. They are listed from the top of the figure down, the way the hexagram is drawn.
-
Nine at the top
Contemplating his life. The noble person is without blame.
One character different from the fifth line: my life becomes his life. The view from outside, with nothing at stake.
-
Nine in the fifth place
Contemplating my own life. The noble person is without blame.
The ruler examining themselves. The line assumes the effect they have on others follows from what they are.
-
Six in the fourth place
Contemplating the light of the kingdom. It helps to be a guest of the king.
Seeing a whole culture at its best, close enough to be influenced by it.
-
Six in the third place
Contemplating my own life, I decide whether to advance or withdraw.
The hinge of the hexagram. Self-examination turned directly into a decision.
-
Six in the second place
Peering through the crack of the door. It rewards a woman's steadfastness.
A partial view from a confined position. Correct within its limits and no basis for judging the whole.
-
Six at the beginning
Boyish looking. For a small person, no blame. For a noble person, regret.
Seeing only the surface. Excusable in someone with no responsibility, not in someone with any.
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