Reading a hexagram
Double appearance
By Vi Nhật Sơn · Updated
Lưỡng hiện
Double appearance — what is it? Double appearance is the case of two Target lines in one hexagram; priority goes to a moving line, then the Self line, then a line combining with it.
As a concept, Double appearance means the case where a hexagram has two Target lines. Every hexagram has at least one such pair, since there are always two Earth lines in a hexagram because of the way the branches are placed. Example:
| Parents | Xu Earth | Self | ||
| Siblings | Shen Metal | |||
| Officer line | Wu Fire | |||
| Parents | Chen Earth | Resp. | ||
| Wealth | Yin Wood | |||
| Offspring | Zi Water |
In this hexagram Parents appears twice, at Xu and at Chen. As with other hexagrams, the Target line does not appear twice for nothing. A hexagram in fact reports far more data than yes/no, right/wrong and timing. In the earlier part I always had to keep people from paying attention to multiplying the information when reading a hexagram until all the step 1 notions of Six Lines had been laid bare; here we come to part 2, which is what the additional information in a hexagram consists of.
There is always a reason for many moving lines, or few, or a double appearance, or a hidden line, or changing into Void, or being Void, in Break or clashed. If it merely reported a result in a straight line, a quiet hexagram would be enough, with the Target line Prosperous or Weak and the Self–Target relation to tell us — what more would be needed? The more problems a hexagram has, the more problems the event itself has.
The order of priority when the Target line appears twice
In principle, priority in a hexagram with a doubled Target line goes as follows:
- A moving line
- The Self line
- A line combining with the Self line
- Only after that, an ordinary line
With a moving line, or the Self line, or a line combining with the Self line (for example: the hexagram Standstill (Pi) with Parents as the Target line), the reading goes just as in an ordinary hexagram with a single appearance. But in the case where the Target line neither moves nor sits on the Self line, Strength is taken from the line that is not Void or in Break, while the timing is taken from the line that is Void or in Break.
Example: in the Xu month, on a Jia Yin day:
| Parents | Xu Earth | |||
| Siblings | Shen Metal | Resp. | ||
| Officer line | Wu Fire | |||
| Siblings | Shen Metal | |||
| Officer line | Wu Fire | Self | ||
| Parents | Chen Earth |
If Parents is the Target line — more precisely a matter of papers — then Parents at Xu Earth coincides with the Month, so Parents counts as Prosperous and the matter succeeds; and the Parents line at Chen Earth, which is in Month Break, will give the moment of timing for the event, that is, when the paperwork comes through: the Chen or You month, or the Chen or You year.
Where Double appearance differs from a moving line
That is the basic reading, turning only on yes/no and when. But as to supporting information, a Double appearance differs from the case of Parents at Chen moving, even though both report success and success at the same branches Chen and You.
The first difference is the moment of timing: with an ordinary doubled line that is not Void or in Break, there will be 4 points of timing, and then by the rule the one nearest the present is taken as the mark, counted in the forward direction. For example, on a Yin day there are 4 points of timing: Chen, Xu, Chou and Wei; Yin is nearest to Chen in the clockwise direction, so the timing of the event is at Chen. The moment of timing for a line in Break that moves may answer at the hour, or at the day, month or year, while Month Break will answer within the month or the year.
The second difference is that when a line is clashed by the Day or the Month and is not combined, the result of the matter asked about is as in an ordinary reading, but the road there will be split up small: if it is money it is small change, even though the total comes to the expected figure; if it is papers, there are many stages before the end.
The third difference is that a Double appearance reports the properties of the matter: a doubled line, although of the same element, is certainly of a different Six Spirit, or Six Beast.
- If it is a person, it will be a person with many traits of character, but not at the same time — meaning that at one moment it will be this way and at another that way. For example: asking about a husband, with the Officer line on the Green Dragon and on the Flying Serpent, the person has psychological tangles, has had a period of depression in their life, and at present is stressed, eating badly, dreaming wildly; but on the outside is cheerful and sociable. With Yin and Yang added, one knows further where this person is decisive and where weak….
- If it is a matter, it reports more information about that matter, as with money: it reports two sources of money, and if it is the Vermilion Bird and the Flying Serpent, then one source comes from talking and the other is dirty or shady money….
- If one is spoilt and one usable, then one of the two is usable and the other spoilt; as to a person, whichever trait is spoilt is the one where the person has to make an effort while not being happy inside, and if it is too Weak they are worn out…
Notes on the moments with Double appearance
From this we can easily see that we have the following notes on Double appearance:
Both lines moving
With both lines moving, if one changes into control we go by the cycle of branches (note that they must be in the same frame, that is, the same year, the same month…) between the intact line and the spoilt line, and take whichever point comes first (counted clockwise in the order of the branches): if the spoilt point appears first, then that moment marks the failure of the matter of concern, and the other way round. This is like the case of Six Clashes changing into Six Harmonies, both being spoilt first and successful later; the only difference is that in this case we can determine the moments of success and failure of the matter, unlike Clash changing into Harmony, which also reports spoilt first and successful later but without our being able to determine the time. In Clash-changing-into-Harmony hexagrams, the timing within the hexagram does not report the moment the matter happens, while the nature of the lines in the primary hexagram reports the present state of the matter. The same holds when the point of success comes before the point of failure. Example:
| Parents | You Metal | |||||
| Siblings | Hai Water | |||||
| Officer line | Chou Earth | Self | × | Wealth · Wu Fire | ||
| Siblings | Hai Water | |||||
| Officer line | Chou Earth | × | Offspring · Yin Wood | |||
| Offspring | Mao Wood | Resp. |
Taking the Officer line as the Target line, we have two Officer lines both moving, one changing into Offspring, which controls the Officer line, and one changing into Wealth, which generates the Officer line. So in an ordinary situation, unaffected by special states such as Void or Month Break…, the points of timing will be at Yin and at Zi–Chou. Supposing it were read on a Chou day, there would be a result within the day, but by Yin the matter would be spoilt; and if read on a Yin day, the matter would be spoilt within the day, and by the Zi day news of success would come. The other time frames are counted from this in the same way.
In the case where one of the two lines is Void, in Month Break, changing into Void or Month Break, or is combined…., we take the separate points of the two lines and do not merge them into one.
In the case where the two lines clash each other, then in theory two lines clashing each other are lost: at the moment of one line the other remains, and the other way round. For example: Chou and Wei clash each other and both are moving lines; then the timing of the Chou line will be at the branch Chou, and the timing of the Wei line at the branch Wei, and the case of Chen and Xu follows from that. If neither line is controlled, we take the timing of each line, and then a representative timing of each line is judged. Note that each line is judged with one timing only. For example: Chen and Wei — the timing of Chen is Chen and You, and of Wei is Wu and Wei; then within the cycle of branches we take the 2 nearest points counted forward, each line counting for one branch only. Supposing it were read on a Si day, we take the 2 points Wu and You, and not both points Wu and Wei, since each line takes only 1 point of timing to stand for the result of that line.
One moving and one still, and both still
- In the case of 1 moving line and 1 still line, we give priority to the moving line, and then we do not consider the still line at all.
- In the case of 2 still lines, with 1 sitting on the Self line, we take the line sitting on the Self line as the Target line and do not consider the other. From this arises the case of 1 moving line and 1 line sitting on the Self line — how do we count that? We take the moving line as the Target line, and the Self line then has only the function of being the Self line; that is, the moving line has priority over the Self line
- In the case of 2 still lines, if one is Void or in Month Break, we take the intact line for the nature of the event, while the Void or Month Break line is taken for the point of timing. If both lines have a problem with Void or Month Break, we drop the Month Break line and take the Void line (if it is Prosperous), and then judge the points as with Void (Section II); and if both lines are ordinary, either may be taken as the Target line, the difference being only in the information supplied
Events with and without a determined time
So we have made clear the points of time for the case of Double appearance. Here, for:
- Events happening without a determined time, we have the formula for working out the moment as above; and then we choose the moment for the success side, while for the failure side we intervene through space, of which more later
- Matters whose time can be determined: here it differs a little from the timing points of the special states, in that we need only take the nature of the Target line and judge it to get the result, meaning that this is a single result. Only the situation of one Prosperous and one changing into control is worth noting, and then we divide the stretches as follows. Suppose A is the point of timing for success, B the timing for failure, and C the present moment. If C is nearer A than B, then the time from C to A is called the stretch of success, and from A onwards it is spoilt, meaning that if the moment falls before A it succeeds and from A onwards it is spoilt. If C is nearer B, then it is the reverse of the above: from C to B it succeeds and after B it is spoilt, counted clockwise
- For events that happen continuously, we judge by the nature of the line, and the breakout points of the matter will lie at the points of timing
Example: The Clinging (Li) changing into The Creative (Qian)
| Siblings | Si Fire | Self | ||||
| Offspring | Wei Earth | × | Wealth · Shen Metal | |||
| Wealth | You Metal | |||||
| Officer line | Hai Water | Resp. | ||||
| Offspring | Chou Earth | × | Parents · Yin Wood | |||
| Parents | Mao Wood |
Here we are not treating this as a Pure hexagram changing into a Pure hexagram, but looking at the two moving lines to make the technique clear; in practice with a hexagram like this we would treat it as Pure Li changing into Pure Qian, while here we are attending to the technique of judging points in Double appearance. Here we have two lines, Chou and Wei, clashing each other, but Chou changes into control, and the relation between a changed line and a moving line has priority over the relation between two moving lines, so we keep the point of the controlled line and do not take the combination. So here we have points of timing at Wu and Wei for the Wei Earth line, the case of success, and at Yin Wood for the Chou Earth line, the case of failure. So supposing the moment of asking is Zi, Zi is nearer Yin, so from Zi to Yin the matter asked about is spoilt and from Yin onwards it succeeds; conversely, supposing it is asked at Chen, then from Chen to Wu it succeeds and from Wu onwards it is spoilt.
The Target line at the changed line
We have just gone through the section on Double appearance; but is a hexagram limited to only 2 Target lines? Certainly not: each hexagram will have at most 4 Target lines, including a Target line at the changed line of a moving line. The formula here is:
If a hexagram has a changed line as the Target line, then the Target line at the changed line is the breakout point, and the Target line of the primary hexagram is the result running through the event, apart from the breakout moment, for matters that happen continuously; while for an event that happens once, we take the changed line for the result and for the point of timing.
Example: on a Ding Mao day, in the Zi month:
| Siblings | Mao Wood | |||||
| Offspring | Si Fire | |||||
| Wealth | Wei Earth | Resp. | ||||
| Wealth | Chen Earth | |||||
| Siblings | Yin Wood | ○ | Wealth · Chou Earth | |||
| Parents | Zi Water | Self |
Asking about Wealth with this hexagram, Wealth in the primary hexagram is Weak and only at the changed line is it Prosperous by default. The result of this was a whole month of selling at a loss, a very big loss, because Siblings, that is the Opposing line, was moving; only on the Chou day was there a burst of sales — an ordinary day 5 million, the Chou day within the month 30 million. This is fact.
To read this hexagram in full: the Target line, Wealth, is controlled by the Day and has nothing from the Month, so it counts as Weak, reporting the potential, meaning that the market being worked in has shrunk and there is no room left for one; and it controls the Self line, so one is worn out and under pressure over the business. Luckily the Self line is Prosperous, so there is only weariness and pressure and no illness or disaster arises. The moving Opposing line drains the Self line, that is, one trusted the wrong person and so, everything being bad already, lost more besides (it turned out afterwards to be an employee); I knew this person, identified by the line as Yang Wood with the Hooked Array. Only the Chou Earth line, the Target line at the changed line, reports a breakout point in the business at the moment of Chou.
With hexagrams like this, to resolve it the first thing is to find out who Siblings is, since this is someone one knows — at least that much, because it lies in the inner trigram — then cut that side off and change the line of goods, and then read a new hexagram; only so is there a chance of success.
See also
- Target line, Hidden line
- Timing, Void, Month Break
- Six Spirits
- Six Harmonies — Six Clashes changing into Six Harmonies