I Ching trigram
Wind
Wind (☴, Xùn) is one of the eight trigrams of the I Ching — the natural forces the 64 hexagrams are built from. Its essence: penetrating · gradual · gentle. Wind 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 57 (Gentleness).
Atlas context
Wind
A visual symbol used as context for reading change.
Wind as the upper trigram
The eight hexagrams with Wind on top.
- 9. Small RestraintNot everything here is won by breaking through; the small holds the great back, for now.
- 20. ContemplationBefore a thing can be seen rightly, it must first be looked at quietly enough.
- 37. The FamilyWhere the closest circle keeps no true form, every larger order soon wears thin.
- 42. IncreaseIncrease is favorable only when what grows truly feeds the right direction.
- 53. Gradual GrowthWhat wants to arrive and last gets further here only by growing slowly and in keeping.
- 57. GentlenessWhat truly penetrates here does so not by force, but by sustained gentleness.
- 59. DissolvingSometimes the task is not to build, but to loosen what has clotted together too hard.
- 61. SinceritySincerity works here not as a rush to confess, but as an inner line that no longer needs a double game.
Wind as the lower trigram
The eight hexagrams with Wind at the bottom.
- 18. Repair WorkWhat has spoiled is not mended by shame or perfume, but by work.
- 28. Great ExcessWhen what bears the weight is overloaded, the moment asks not for elegance, but for truth under pressure.
- 32. EnduranceEndurance lives not on hardness, but on a rhythm that can keep carrying itself.
- 44. EncounterNot everything that suddenly appears may also be allowed to stay.
- 46. AscendingAscent here is not made in leaps, but through steady, upward faithfulness.
- 48. The WellThe well asks not for spectacle, but for care of what lies deeper than the moment.
- 50. The CauldronWhat makes a vessel worthy is not its shine, but what it can hold in the right heat.
- 57. GentlenessWhat truly penetrates here does so not by force, but by sustained gentleness.
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.