Jian · Gradual Progress

The meaning

What the name means Jian is gradual progress: one step at a time, slowly.

The picture A tree on a mountain, growing slowly, ring by ring.

The sense of the whole The whole hexagram is about going in order. Like a marriage or a growing tree, nothing arrives all at once; walk steadily and do not skip a step, and it turns out the steadiest.

In plain words: what this hexagram says

Like geese flying, one stage at a time. Good bonds and good work come slowly and in order; they cannot be hurried.

The upper trigram is Wind and the lower is Mountain: Wind above, Mountain below. When you read it, first picture the two together as a scene, then set it against the original below. The plain words speak only of stance and do not foretell.

The judgement

女歸吉，利貞。

The image

山上有木，漸；君子以居賢德善俗。

The six lines

From the bottom up, the first line is the lowest. When you cast this hexagram and a line is changing, read the matching one. The original is classical Chinese.

1. 初六鴻漸於幹，小子厲，有言，無咎。
2. 六二鴻漸於磐，飲食衎衎，吉。
3. 九三鴻漸於陸，夫徵不復，婦孕不育，兇；利禦寇。
4. 六四鴻漸於木，或得其桷，無咎。
5. 九五鴻漸於陵，婦三歲不孕，終莫之勝，吉。
6. 上九鴻漸於陸，其羽可用為儀，吉。

To learn how to read a hexagram, see "How to read a hexagram"; for changing lines, see "Changing lines and the resulting hexagram".