EN (English)
䷢
Hexagram 35 of 64
Progress
晉 · Jìn
The sun rising over the earth. The hexagram is about visible advancement, and the classic pairs it with a warning about what you advance for.
advancement
recognition
clarity
rising
- King Wen number
- 35 of 64
- Above
- ☲ Lí · Fire
- Below
- ☷ Kūn · Earth
- Composition
- Fire over Earth
- Lines, bottom to top
- Broken · broken · broken · solid · broken · solid
- Chinese
- 晉 · Jìn
The Judgment
A capable prince is presented with horses in great number and granted audience three times in a single day.
Recognition arriving faster than protocol usually allows. Advancement here is generous, public and rapid.
The Image
The light comes out above the earth: Progress. So the noble person brightens their own bright character.
The advancement is internal first. Nothing external is being polished here.
What it means
Jin is the sun coming up over the earth, and the classic uses it for advancement of the visible kind: promotion, recognition, being received and rewarded. The Judgment has a capable officer given horses and admitted to audience three times in one day, which is the book's most enthusiastic picture of a career going well.
The line texts are more interesting than that suggests, because they sort progress by motive. The fourth line, the ugly one, describes advancement like a hoarding rodent: acquisitive, hidden, storing things up. The classic marks it dangerous. The fifth line, the best in the hexagram, says do not take gain and loss to heart and then promises that everything opens.
Between them is the hexagram's argument. Advancement pursued as accumulation gets tighter and more anxious; advancement pursued without scorekeeping succeeds. The Image agrees, locating the real work in brightening your own character rather than your position.
The top line permits aggressive advance for exactly one purpose, which is correcting your own household. Force turned outward under this hexagram is not sanctioned.
In a reading
Progress as an answer is favourable and describes movement upward: recognition, a step forward, the door opening.
Its counsel is to keep advancing without counting, and to stay calm about early rebuffs. The one thing it warns against is the acquisitive version of ambition, and the fifth line is unusually clear that letting go of the tally is what makes the rest work.
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.
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Nine at the top
Advancing with the horns is permitted only for disciplining your own city. Aware of the danger, good fortune, no blame. Steadfastness brings humiliation.
Aggressive progress allowed for one purpose only: putting your own house in order.
-
Six in the fifth place
Regret disappears. Do not take gain and loss to heart. Undertakings bring good fortune. Nothing that does not further.
The ruling line, and the hexagram's answer. Advance without keeping score and everything opens.
-
Nine in the fourth place
Progress like a hoarding rodent. Steadfastness brings danger.
Advancement by accumulation and concealment. The image is deliberately unattractive.
-
Six in the third place
Everyone agrees. Regret disappears.
Advancement carried by common consent rather than by effort. The obstacle was never the work.
-
Six in the second place
Progressing in sorrow. Steadfastness brings good fortune. Great blessing comes from the ancestress.
Advancement that is going well and does not feel good. Help arrives from an older source.
-
Six at the beginning
Progressing and pushed back. Steadfastness brings good fortune. Meeting no confidence, stay calm. No mistake.
An early check. The line's whole instruction is not to take the rebuff personally.
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