Hexagram 53 · Jian · Development

Increments

Progress by stages.

The situation

This develops in order, one stage at a time. Skipping steps breaks it.

What it asks of you

Go in sequence and let it take the time it takes.

Read this against your own situation →

Where it leads

How it looks from the other side
Misalignment
Entering from the wrong position.
The opposite reading
Misalignment
Entering from the wrong position.
What sits underneath it
Threshold
Almost across, not yet.

The six lines

  1. initial The wild goose comes step by step to the shore. Danger for the young one, and talk. Nothing goes wrong. 鴻漸于干,小子厲,有言,无咎
  2. second The goose comes to the flat rock. Eating and drinking in peace. 鴻漸于磐,飲食衎衎,吉
  3. third The goose comes to the high ground. The husband marches out and does not return; the wife conceives and does not carry it. Good only for holding off attack. 鴻漸于陸。夫征不復,婦孕不育,凶。利禦寇
  4. fourth The goose comes to the tree, and may find a flat branch to stand on. Nothing goes wrong. 鴻漸于木,或得其桷,无咎
  5. fifth The goose comes to the hilltop. Three years and the wife does not conceive. In the end nothing prevails against it. 鴻漸于陵,婦三歲不孕,終莫之勝,吉
  6. top The goose comes to the high ground, and its feathers can be used in the dance. 鴻漸于陸,其羽可用為儀,吉

The line texts are the oldest layer of the book. They are pictures, not instructions, and they are meant to be held against your own situation rather than decoded.

How this one is built

Written out as six lines, bottom to top, this pattern is 110100 — a solid line is 1, a broken line is 0. Every relationship above is arithmetic on those six digits, not interpretation: reverse the order and you get the other side, flip every digit and you get the opposite reading, take the middle four and you get what sits underneath. Anyone can check the result, which is what separates a structure from a fortune.

The sequence is built the same way. The sixty-four are arranged in thirty-two pairs, and turned upside down it becomes Misalignment. The rule holds for all thirty-two pairs without exception — twenty-eight joined by reversal, four by inversion.

In the received order it sits between Stillness and Misalignment. The order is not alphabetical or random: the old commentary reads it as a chain, one situation giving rise to the next.