Six Lines basics
Response line (Ying)
By Vi Nhật Sơn · Updated
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Response line (Ying) — what is it? The Response line is the particular delight of Six Lines: sometimes a secondary Target line, sometimes the Target line for someone with no dedicated one.
The Response line is the particular delight of Six Lines divination. In some cases the Response line is read as a secondary Target line.
The Response line as a secondary Target line
For example:
“A little different from an ordinary hexagram: when reading a business one must note that we read a group of two lines and a group of one line, and do not read three lines at once. The group of two lines means the Self line and Wealth, that is, the relation between the person and the money — the entry on Self and Target sets this out clearly — and the Self line and the Response line, meaning the relation between oneself and the customers: if the Response line controls the Self line the customers are not satisfied with us, and how they are not satisfied has to be read further, while if the Self line controls the Response line the decoration is not right. The group of one line is the Response line alone, which indicates the number of customers; Response Weak means the method of approaching customers is not right. Combine it further with the element and the Six Spirits to know the main characteristics of that group of customers, supposing that Fire is a group of customers who tend to choose goods quickly.... adapt sensibly according to the trade, and from that choose the most suitable method of approach. The Flying Serpent is a group of customers whose behaviour goes beyond the ordinary standard, and if it moves and controls the Self line one is stressed by the customers....”
The Response line as the Target line for a person with no dedicated Target line
In some other cases the Response line plays the part of the Target line for matters that are not one's own and that also have no dedicated Target line (for example, the health of a wife: the wife is Wealth, so Wealth is the dedicated Target line for the wife's health); for example, the health of a completely different person who has no blood relation with oneself at all, and this includes brothers and uncles outside the family with no blood relation. This is what people new to the Yi often confuse: relationships in which people call each other brothers outside the family do not take Siblings as the Target line but take the Response line as the Target line, and likewise with the woman who sells sticky rice, the policeman…. All of them take the Response line as the Target line.
Apart from the two cases above, the Response line is not used in ordinary reading, as with money coming in or promotion to office: those are matters of oneself alone, unconnected with other people, and reading the Response line would be meaningless.
The Response line at work
At work, if one works in a group without being the owner, the general method of reading is as follows:
- Line 1: the rank of the staff
- Line 5: the person of the highest rank in the work
From here one adapts for lines 2, 3 and 4, to fit the reality of the work in question. Arranging the lines in this way will tell us how the person at line 1 feels about us, and likewise for the other lines, rather than reading the Response line.
But if one has a difficulty directly with another person, specifically a colleague of the same rank, then cast a separate hexagram and take the Response line as the Target line; if the person is of a higher rank, take Parents as the Target line, and with someone below oneself, take Wealth as the Target line.
This is why the Response line is called a particular delight: every matter in this world that belongs to people can be read by taking the Response line as the Target line. Note that we then do not read the Self line together with the Response line, for example reading a presidential election, or the result of a football match, and so on. Note that once the Response line is taken as the Target line we do not go to the Self line, except when reading the outside relationships as they bear on oneself.
This leads to — let it be said again — reading romance: the Response line indicates the family of the other party, and whether one is already acquainted or it is only a budding relationship, one takes Officer or Wealth as the Target line. The Response line is then the attitude of the other party's family (note: not including the person one is drawn to) towards oneself, or how the present family circumstances of the other party stand. This is not to be carried over to the case of one's own family circumstances, which are read through the Self line.
Uses of the Response line
The uses of the Response line are as follows:
Finding a person
Finding a person is not always a person of one's own blood: when one comes across some wrong somewhere, such as a missing child, or someone who has gone missing, the Response line is exactly the person one is looking for.
Reading a criminal case
Reading crime and homicide, take Officer as the Target line and the Response line as the victim; the timing of the arrest, if Officer is Prosperous, is as usual, and if Officer is Resting or Weak it is the Tomb or Extinction.
A hexagram reporting a case: the afternoon before last, a friend from the criminal police called to report that an American had died in the middle of a forest, a man who had lived there with his wife since 2004. He was found to be missing at 3 p.m. the previous afternoon and was discovered at 8 a.m. the next morning; asked for information about this case: Duration (Heng) changing to Great Exceeding (Da Guo), on a Jia Shen day in the Yin month:
| Wealth | Xu Earth | Resp. | ||||
| Officer line | Shen Metal | × | Officer line · You Metal | |||
| Offspring | Wu Fire | |||||
| Officer line | You Metal | Self | ||||
| Parents | Hai Water | |||||
| Wealth | Chou Earth |
The result was death by suicide. The story is this: the man was American, and in 2004 he and his Vietnamese wife bought a hill in Nha Trang. A few days before his death he had a medical result showing that he had an illness, after which his wife joked that he was American and that if he died in Vietnam people would think she had killed him for his property; the man took it as true. On the afternoon of the Shen day, at noon the wife came home and found him missing, and by the next morning the body was found at the foot of a tree, hanged in a kneeling posture, with the wrists cut; at first this friend called me because he suspected foul play. I said it had to do with a woman living near the house, fair-skinned and bright-faced... and suggested looking to see whether there was a romantic connection; by yesterday morning the friend called back to report that it was suicide, and that a farewell letter had been found in the house saying that this was his own wish and asking that his wife be relieved of all responsibility.
The reason I knew a woman living near the house was involved is: reading a case, we take the Response line as the victim and the Officer line as the culprit. Here the Officer line is on Metal, moving and draining the Response line, and with a Metal line the characteristics are fair skin, a bright face and a conservative temper, while the moving Officer line is also close to oneself. Besides, because the Officer line sits on the Self line, the person asking already knew this person.
That last hexagram may serve as the reason I often encourage everyone to work with the Yi seriously, so as to bring out their own part of it. For no one knows one's own affairs as well as oneself. No one understands the factors in an event better than oneself, so that at each moment one may behave sensibly, or at least know where is where.
On cases again: during the time when Tuấn Khỉ was shooting it out, someone posted a hexagram asking about arresting this fellow, and it came out as The Creative (Qian) moving at line 5, on a Ren Shen day in the Chou month. Coming back to the same story as before, reading a case, take Officer as the Target line. In this hexagram the Officer line is Resting and the Hostile line is moving, so I judged that he would be caught at Xu or Hai; in the end it turned out that he had just been shot a moment before.
| Parents | Xu Earth | Self | ||||
| Siblings | Shen Metal | ○ | Parents · Wei Earth | |||
| Officer line | Wu Fire | |||||
| Parents | Chen Earth | Resp. | ||||
| Wealth | Yin Wood | |||||
| Offspring | Zi Water |
Generally, with catching thieves and robbers, in practice, if it is Prosperous the arrest answers at the usual timing, and if it is Resting or Weak it answers at the Tomb or Extinction. There is an exception, though one that cannot be verified: a moving Hostile line is a secret report from behind, rather than being discovered directly, by a pair.
Over the years I have often had occasion to work with friends from the criminal police, and case hexagrams are usually verified and turned into formulas like the one above. In the wife's hexagram the timing was at the You day; and in an earlier hexagram about lying in wait to catch robbers, the Officer line sat on the Self line at Wu, and the next day being a Wu day, they were caught at the Wu hour.
Reading football results and elections
The way of reading these two matters, which are somewhat sensitive and do not follow principle as ordinary matters do, consists of:
- If one is involved oneself, take Wealth and read it as an ordinary Wealth hexagram
- If one is not involved, take the other side as the Response line and absolutely do not read the Self line; the common mistake people make is to read the Self and Response relation as an ordinary contest of strength. Then one need only remember the following principles: Prosperous means the other side wins, Weak means the other side loses. Void or Month Break still counts as Weak even when the line is Prosperous; a moving Hostile line is a draw; and Resting is also a loss, because by the principle for a near matter Resting is like Weak
Of course, where the Response line is concerned, much space remains, but that is left for everyone to explore and so to find a delight of their own.
See also
- Self line, Target line
- Stem-branch assignment — arranging the Self and Response lines
- Career — a colleague of the same rank takes the Response line
- Timing