EN (English)
䷕
Hexagram 22 of 64
Grace
賁 · Bì
Fire at the foot of a mountain, throwing everything above into relief. The hexagram is about form, beauty and presentation, and about how far they can carry a matter.
form
beauty
presentation
simplicity
- King Wen number
- 22 of 64
- Above
- ☶ Gèn · Mountain
- Below
- ☲ Lí · Fire
- Composition
- Mountain over Fire
- Lines, bottom to top
- Solid · broken · solid · broken · broken · solid
- Chinese
- 賁 · Bì
The Judgment
Success. In small matters it helps to undertake something.
The qualification is the point. Grace genuinely works, and it works on the scale of the small.
The Image
Fire below the mountain: Grace. So the noble person clarifies everyday business and does not presume to settle disputed cases.
Presentation may organise the ordinary. It has no business deciding what is actually true.
What it means
Bi is the hexagram of form. Fire burning at the base of a mountain lights up the shapes above it, and everything looks better than it does in daylight, which is exactly what the classic wants to talk about.
Its position is neither cynical nor enthusiastic. Grace succeeds, and it succeeds in small matters. The Image draws the boundary sharply: presentation can clarify routine business and must not be allowed near a disputed judgement, because a well-formed argument and a true one are different things.
The lines follow a movement from ornament toward its own disappearance. Adorned toes, and the carriage left behind. An adorned beard, which the commentaries have always read as decoration attached to something that does not move on its own. Then the fourth line's open question, grace or plainness, and a white horse arriving so fast it is mistaken for an attack.
The fifth line is the hexagram's moral centre: a gift of silk so meagre it embarrasses the giver, and it is the right gift. The top line closes the argument in two characters. Plain grace. No blame. Refinement pursued to the end arrives at simplicity.
In a reading
Grace as an answer says the matter turns on form: how something is presented, framed, dressed or said. That is worth attention, and the hexagram limits its scope to smaller undertakings.
Its counsel is to get the presentation right and not to expect it to settle anything substantive. If you are choosing between the impressive version and the plain one, the last two lines have already voted.
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
Plain grace. No blame.
The hexagram's conclusion. Ornament has been worked all the way through and comes out as no ornament at all.
-
Six in the fifth place
Grace in the hills and gardens. The roll of silk is small and meagre. Humiliation, and in the end good fortune.
A modest gift that embarrasses the giver and is received well. The classic prefers the thin bolt of silk to the impressive one.
-
Six in the fourth place
Grace or plainness? A white horse comes as if winged. Not a raider, a suitor.
A hesitation between ornament and simplicity, interrupted by something arriving fast and being misread as a threat.
-
Nine in the third place
Graceful and glistening. Lasting steadfastness brings good fortune.
At ease and well presented, with the warning implied: keep something under it that lasts.
-
Six in the second place
He adorns his beard.
Decorating what has nothing of its own to say. The beard moves only when the chin does.
-
Nine at the beginning
He adorns his toes, leaves the carriage and walks.
Choosing to go on foot. Declining a comfort that would have looked wrong is itself a kind of style.
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