Hexagram 35: Progress

晉 (Jìn)

Advancement, promotion, and steady progress toward goals.

Overview

You have come to a high point. This is where several earlier periods of your life come together. You have gathered strength and knowledge, thought through every stage of the work behind you, and found people who think as you do. Now your work is starting to bring its first real results. It is like the sun coming up.

Everything is pushing you toward action. But there is one thing to work out before you throw yourself into it. Your actions will succeed only if you aim your strength and your skill at work that benefits other people as well as you.

Whom you will help, and how, is hard to say. Much depends on your abilities, your knowledge, your experience, and your willingness to work for the good of others. Be unselfish, or things will not go as well as you would like.

People around you

Start with your relationships. This is where you can show your abilities and talents. It will be very good if you put yourself in the position of your friends, and then bring them into your plans.

But do not hurry. Count your strength and remember that what you can do has limits. Do not make empty promises. Try not to make other people depend on your actions.

Work

Do not work only for your own gain. This does not mean spending all your energy and knowledge on other people's problems, because you would quickly ruin your own affairs. But it is worth thinking about how you can help your friends and colleagues. You are not going to spend your whole life alone. Sooner or later you are likely to need support yourself, and if you want your requests to be answered, always be ready to help other people.

Your wish

Whether your wish comes true depends a lot on how the people involved behave. That does not mean you have no influence. Bring your actions in line with theirs, and you will have a real chance to see it happen quickly.

This Overview is one traditional reading of the figure, offered as a prompt for reflection and perspective rather than a prediction of a fixed future. Where this material comes from.

New to the sequence? See how lines, trigrams and changing lines work, or cast your own reading with the three-coin method.

Structure

Read from the bottom upward, hexagram 35 is Fire over Earth. Its two inner, or nuclear, trigrams are Water over Mountain. What the eight trigrams mean.

Upper trigram (lines 4–6): Lí · Fire Clinging and bright
Lower trigram (lines 1–3): Kūn · Earth Receptive and devoted
Upper nuclear (lines 3–5): Kǎn · Water Deep and dangerous
Lower nuclear (lines 2–4): Gèn · Mountain Still and stopping