Reading a hexagram
Several moving lines
By Vi Nhật Sơn · Updated
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Several moving lines — what is it? Several moving lines means 3 or more: the lines cancel themselves or each other into at most two element groups, and the result is referred to Target and Self.
In theory every hexagram can be read, whether it has no moving line or all 6 lines moving. The more lines move, the more information there is. But in practice, a hexagram with many moving lines may fail the second factor of the principle, that of the right hexagram — that is, the person asking did not concentrate enough on their question. So how is a hexagram with several moving lines to be read?
A hexagram with two moving lines has an entry of its own; today's content concerns only hexagrams with 3 or more moving lines.
Kind 1: gathering into two element groups
As to reading a hexagram with several moving lines, there are two kinds:
Kind 1: the lines cancel themselves, or cancel one another, and form at most two element groups; then we take those two element groups acting on each other by the rule that whichever element is stronger is the one taken. With this group of many-moving hexagrams, the hardest thing is the moment of timing, because if the groups of lines control each other and are both Prosperous, we take the stronger group, and then take that result against the Target line and the Self line for the final result, as with a hexagram with a single moving line. For example: Darkening of the Light (Ming Yi) changing into The Well (Jing)
| Parents | You Metal | |||||
| Siblings | Hai Water | × | Officer line · Xu Earth | |||
| Officer line | Chou Earth | Self | ||||
| Siblings | Hai Water | |||||
| Officer line | Chou Earth | × | Siblings · Hai Water | |||
| Offspring | Mao Wood | Resp. | ○ | Officer line · Chou Earth |
Under standard conditions (the lines not being Void, in Break, in the Tomb or at Extinction, and all Prosperous), there are three moving lines, namely Siblings, Officer and Offspring. In this situation we see that Siblings changes into control, so we drop Siblings out of the chain; that leaves Officer and Offspring, and Offspring controls Officer, so the final result left is Offspring at Mao Wood. Then whatever we want to read, we simply take Offspring against the Target line and the Self line as in a hexagram with a single moving line, and get the result.
But if the group controlled is stronger than the controlling group as to Strength (Resting against Prosperous, Prosperous against Excessive strength), the group controlled will be the leading one in relation to the Target line and the Self line, and the moment of timing of the action is the clash of the controlling line. For example, with Darkening of the Light changing into The Well above, supposing Offspring were Resting and Officer Prosperous, then at You the Officer line will interact with the Target line and the Self line, and not before. This is the case of an Opposing line weaker than the Target line in reading a hexagram: if two lines control each other and the controlling line is weaker in state than the line controlled, we take the stronger line as our reference, and the moment of timing of the matter is at the clash of the weaker one. Example: on a You day in the Hai month, a moving Wu Fire line controls a Target line at Metal, and the matter still succeeds, because Fire is then Weak and Metal Prosperous; the moment of timing of the success is at the Zi day, month, year or hour, because Zi clashes away Wu.
In this situation, the principle is to gather into two groups of lines with two elements, see how those two elements interact, and then take that result against the Target line and the Self line for the final result. The situations in which lines can be gathered include: lines reduced by changing into control, or a Weak line controlled by the Day or the Month, or a Resting line entering the Tomb…. Here is an example:
On a Bing Wu day, in the Xu month, a student asked about a hexagram for a company's business up to the end of the year; the hexagram was Increase (Yi) changing into Duration (Heng):
| Siblings | Mao Wood | Resp. | ○ | Wealth · Xu Earth | ||
| Offspring | Si Fire | ○ | Officer line · Shen Metal | |||
| Wealth | Wei Earth | × | Offspring · Wu Fire | |||
| Wealth | Chen Earth | Self | × | Officer line · You Metal | ||
| Siblings | Yin Wood | × | Parents · Hai Water | |||
| Parents | Zi Water | ○ | Wealth · Chou Earth |
Siblings moves twice, at 2 and at 6, and controls Wealth; the inner trigram combines into a Parents frame generating Siblings; Offspring could link up but is combined. On an ordinary reading it would be thrown away — but is that so?
Siblings is Void, and as it moves we do not count the Void; but just as Break fears Extinction, so Void fears the Tomb, and without the Tomb it counts as the line being lost. Here both Siblings lines are Void, and the Tomb at line 4 is not clashed or in Break, so it is judged as Void entering the Tomb, and the two Siblings lines, although moving, become useless. Parents moves and is clashed by the Day, is controlled by the Month and changes into control, so this Parents line counts as lost. Besides, this Parents line cannot join with Wealth and wait for Shen to combine into a frame, because each frame may have at most 1 existing problem — a missing branch, Void, Break, or an exhausted Weak line. Here Parents is Weak and changes into control, so it is utterly exhausted, and the frame is missing the branch Shen, so no frame is formed. Why not list Wealth in Break as well? Because although Wealth is in Break it changes into a combination, and Break meeting a combination becomes no-Break; but on the fine scale we still judge the clash by the Month in filling out the chain of information for the reading. Parents counts as lost; so although six lines move, when gathered they come to only two groups, Offspring and Wealth. Here Offspring changes into a combination, so it does not move and does not generate the Self line; Wealth moves twice and is Prosperous, so it reports that the company has many sources of income, all of them profitable, but with nothing accumulated — so the likelihood is debts hard to collect, or money rolled straight back into production..... But don't be hasty: in the 1st lunar month, which clashes away Shen combining with Si, Offspring generates Wealth, and then it counts as having a surplus.
Dividing into two stages
Sometimes a hexagram with several moving lines is divided into two stages for a continuous event: before the moment, and from the moment onwards. This split hexagram is where many lines move but one or more of them is temporarily wiped out by Void, Month Break, changing into Void, changing into Break, or being Prosperous and in the Tomb. In such cases it divides into two stages, the stage before the filling and the stage from the filling onwards. This means that before the moment there may be a grouping of lines which at the filling is no longer a grouping, or the other way round. For example with the same hexagram above: if Xu Earth, that is the changed line of Siblings, were Void or in Month Break, then before the filling of the Void or the Break the Siblings line would still act on the hexagram as an ordinary moving line, and it would then count as a hexagram with 3 moving lines; how to read more than 2 groups of moving lines will be set out later. All in all, when a line in the hexagram is Void or in Break, changes into Void or Break, or is Prosperous and enters the Tomb, or moves and is combined, then the simplest thing is to divide into 2 hexagrams, each corresponding to one stage.
With a hexagram about a fixed event, we judge the nature only at the filling of the line, and the timing of the event is likewise at the moment of the filling of the line. With the same example above, Xu being Void, the moment of timing of the event will be at Xu, and then we take the Offspring–Officer chain and judge it against the Target line and the Self line. This leads to another situation: with the Offspring–Officer chain, what if Officer is Prosperous and Offspring Weak? Then there will be 2 stages of one event, and the main event will be counted from the moment Offspring is clashed. For example: the father is away and not yet back; then the clash of Offspring, that is, the clash that takes away the Hostile line of the Target line, is the moment he comes back, while news comes at the moment of the clash or filling of the Void.
The cases that do not form groups
Example:
| Parents | Xu Earth | Self | ○ | Siblings · You Metal | ||
| Siblings | Shen Metal | ○ | Offspring · Hai Water | |||
| Officer line | Wu Fire | ○ | Parents · Chou Earth | |||
| Parents | Chen Earth | Resp. | ○ | Wealth · Mao Wood | ||
| Wealth | Yin Wood | ○ | Officer line · Si Fire | |||
| Offspring | Zi Water | ○ | Parents · Wei Earth |
Suppose the Qian hexagram moves at all 6 lines; not counting the changed lines, and supposing all the lines are usable and form no frame, it is read as follows:
- Xu generates Shen; take Shen as the result of round 1
- Wu controls Shen; take Wu as the result of round 2
- Wu generates Chen; take Chen as the result of round 3
- Yin controls Chen; take Yin as the result of round 4
- Zi generates Yin; take Yin as the final result
Then, whatever we want to read, we take the final result, that is, the branch Yin, against the Target line and the Self line as with a hexagram of 1 moving line. With this hexagram, supposing the Self line is taken as the Target line, we count how Yin Wood acts on the Self line at Xu Earth; and if Wealth is taken as the Target line, we refer Yin Wood to Wealth.
The principle of the standard way of reading several moving lines is to take each pair of moving lines from the top down and judge them, then take the final result against the Target line and the Self line. Of course, in practice the order of priority is as follows:
The moving–changed relation of each moving line
The moving–changed relation of each moving line: if a moving line changes into control, it counts as thrown away and need not be reckoned. If the moving–changed relation is unbalanced with the weaker side belonging to the changed line — for example moving line Prosperous and changed line Weak: on a Chen day in the Chen month, Shen changing into Wu, then we wait for the timing of Wu and the line is lost; so the timing of the hexagram is at the moment of Wu, and for a continuous event, at Wu the event of the Shen-changing-into-Wu line happens. For example: on a Hai day in the Chen month:
| Officer line | Yin Wood | Self | ||||
| Wealth | Zi Water | × | Parents · Si Fire | |||
| Siblings | Xu Earth | |||||
| Offspring | Shen Metal | Resp. | ○ | Parents · Wu Fire | ||
| Parents | Wu Fire | × | Siblings · Chen Earth | |||
| Siblings | Chen Earth |
Offspring is Prosperous and Parents Resting. If the hexagram is about a fixed event, such as when there will be money, or a promotion….., then drop the Offspring line and read the Wealth–Parents relation, then take the result of the chain against the Target and Self lines; the moment of timing is at Wu, because Fire is Weak and Metal Prosperous. With continuous events, we judge two stages, stage 1 corresponding to the case where Metal exists — here the chain is counted as Zi Water – Shen Metal, leaving Zi Water; Zi Water – Wu Fire, leaving Zi Water; so whatever we read, we take Zi Water against the Target and Self lines. Stage 2 is from Wu onwards, when only Wealth and Parents still exist, and then we need only take the result of the Wealth–Parents pair against the Target and Self lines to get the result of the second pair.
If it comes to the same final result, why go through all this complexity with several moving lines? The reason is that the more lines move, the more information there is by which to judge the factors acting within an event, so as to have an overall view and a suitable way of behaving. For example: with Wealth, if the Source line and the Draining line both move, it reports that the person helping one, or going into business with one, will be the one who helps cut costs by their advice, so in matters of management the opinion of the partner should be given weight…
Forming a frame
A frame takes priority: the element of the frame is taken as the last acting factor in the chain of action. In the Qian hexagram above, supposing Yin, Wu and Xu form a frame while the remaining lines form none, we pass over the three lines Yin – Wu – Xu; then Shen – Chen leaves Shen, and Shen – Zi leaves Zi. Take the result of the odd chain, that is Zi, acting with the element of the frame, which is Wu Fire, and Zi is left; take Zi against the Self and Target lines for the result. A FRAME reports a matter shared by a group; it may be a group of people or a chain of links, for example a number of linked companies…. Read it accordingly.
A commentary on a many-moving hexagram in the Tăng san
An example of several moving lines: in Tăng san Sai lầm Bình chú, page 159, there is the hexagram Fellowship (Tong Ren) changing into Deliverance (Xie) on a Ji Mao day in the Xu month:
| Offspring | Xu Earth | Resp. | ○ | Offspring · Xu Earth | ||
| Wealth | Shen Metal | ○ | Wealth · Shen Metal | |||
| Siblings | Wu Fire | |||||
| Officer line | Hai Water | Self | ○ | Siblings · Wu Fire | ||
| Offspring | Chou Earth | × | Offspring · Chen Earth | |||
| Parents | Mao Wood | ○ | Parents · Yin Wood |
"The book says: the Parents line at Mao Wood meets the Day establishment; the top line at Xu Earth moves and generates Shen Metal, and Metal generates Hai Water. If Chou Earth did not change into a Draining line to block the Water, the Parents line would go on being generated by the Water, and the illness, though grave, would not be a cause for concern. Now the Parents line is not nourished by the Water, and it changes into a Retreating line, so the essence and the blood are ruined. In the Chou month, when Earth is Prosperous, it will take away the source of the water; guard against danger. Afterwards the mother did indeed die in the Chou month."
As to this reading, I left it blank, because explaining it would run too long and the scope of the book was not enough; today I comment on it here:
There has probably been a confusion in the gap between the month and the solar term, which turned the timing into Chou. The mother should by rights have answered at Yin or at Chen; and by the rule of the order of timing spoken of before, within the cycle of branches whichever branch comes first is taken first. Here it is the Xu month, and between Yin and Chen, Xu is nearer Yin, so the timing will be at Yin.
We know this because this hexagram is about a fixed event, that is, the mother either lives or dies, and when she recovers and when she dies; so the hexagram is judged from the top down, dropping no line, and the timing will be at whichever line has the fault.
- The pair Offspring at Xu and Wealth at Shen act on each other first; on a Ji Mao day, Shen and You are Void, but as above we still judge them all, and take one point of timing at Shen. The pair Xu – Shen gives the result Shen
- The pair Shen – Hai gives the result Hai
- The pair Hai – Chou gives the result Chou; here we see that in the Xu month, Chen is in Month Break, so the 2nd point of timing is at Chen, the filling of the Break of the changed line, Chou Earth changing into Chen Earth. This is also why the Shen Metal line at line 5 does not count as being in the Tomb at the Chou Earth line: because, as an earlier entry said, if the changed line is Void or in Break it never counts as the Tomb, even if it is filled. So the 2nd point of timing is Chen Earth
- The pair Chou – Mao: take Mao. By rights, at that point she could not have died; but unhappily Mao changes into Retreating, and because of the Retreating, with days long and months wide it will retreat, which is why she did not die within the month. Besides, the Mao line is combined by the Month, and the moment of timing of a combination by the Month is the clash of the Month, so the 3rd point of timing is Chen, which happens to coincide with point 2.
So in the end she died in the Yin month, and not in Chou. Of that I am certain.
Points of wiping out and points of new appearance
Here is a note on the points at which lines are wiped out immediately, namely:
- Resting, Void, in Break, Weak or Rootless, and in the Tomb
- In Break and at Extinction
- Changing into control with a Prosperous Opposing line
Points of wiping out over time are:
- Changing into Retreating
Points of new appearance are:
- Resting, asking about a distant matter
- Changing into Advancing
- Changing into Birth
- Prosperous and in the Tomb
- Prosperous and in Break
See also
- Single moving line, Still hexagram
- Three Harmonies frame, Combination and clash of lines
- Void, Tomb, Timing
- Principles of reading a hexagram — the order for a hexagram with several moving lines