I Ching trigram
Lake
Lake (☱, Duì) is one of the eight trigrams of the I Ching — the natural forces the 64 hexagrams are built from. Its essence: joy · openness · exchange. Lake appears in 16 positions within the 64 hexagrams: as the upper trigram in eight and as the lower trigram in eight, and carries itself twice in hexagram 58 (Joy).
Atlas context
Lake
A visual symbol used as context for reading change.
Lake as the upper trigram
The eight hexagrams with Lake on top.
- 17. FollowingTo follow without testing is to wear another's direction as your own fate.
- 28. Great ExcessWhen what bears the weight is overloaded, the moment asks not for elegance, but for truth under pressure.
- 31. ResonanceWhat truly moves you does not force; it moves because it enters.
- 43. BreakthroughBreakthrough asks not for noise, but for a clearly spoken limit no longer put off.
- 45. GatheringA gathering gains weight when what comes together also stands around something real.
- 47. ExhaustionExhaustion shows what remains when pressure can no longer be carried by show.
- 49. RevolutionRevolution becomes true only when the old skin can no longer be carried along.
- 58. JoyReal openness lightens, but loses its truth the moment it has to force good cheer.
Lake as the lower trigram
The eight hexagrams with Lake at the bottom.
- 10. TreadingYou are moving close to danger here; only the right step keeps the footing intact.
- 19. ApproachWhat approaches brings opening with it, and with it the duty not to grow careless in good fortune.
- 38. OppositionNot every opposition asks to be resolved; sometimes difference must first be allowed to be pure difference.
- 41. DecreaseDecrease turns fruitful when the loss takes away something needless and leaves the essential untouched.
- 54. Marrying InWhoever enters without a central place must know all the more sharply what is, and is not, their dignity.
- 58. JoyReal openness lightens, but loses its truth the moment it has to force good cheer.
- 60. LimitationLimitation saves here not by making small, but by restoring measure where form would otherwise be lost.
- 61. SinceritySincerity works here not as a rush to confess, but as an inner line that no longer needs a double game.
The eight trigrams
Each hexagram is a stacking of two trigrams. See all eight natural forces or all 64 hexagrams.
Start small
Read what is moving in your own situation.
A trigram takes on meaning within the hexagram it appears in, and a hexagram in relation to your own question. Ask one and read what appears.