Hexagram 53: Development

漸 (Jiàn)

Gradual progress and steady development toward maturity.

Overview

Your opportunities in the past were limited. For a time you had to step back from active work in the world and look quietly at what was going on around you.

Without noise or fuss, you were trying to find the cause of the events you stood in the middle of. To succeed at that hard task you had to withdraw into yourself for a while and find a quiet harbor.

Had you not done that, what came next would have led you into a dead end, in the most unexpected and unpleasant way. Now that you understand what is happening and know your place in it, you can calmly set sail on a new voyage.

That is why this sign is about a current. You are like a leaf caught in the fast current of a river, carried farther and farther from familiar places. The river is the whole sum of life's events, and it has taken you into its flow.

What should you do in this situation?

Get used to what is happening as fast as you can. You have had enough time to understand the situation and work out how to act.

A new turn of events should not surprise or frighten you. At first the speed of it all may have taken your breath away. But you have the situation in hand now.

People around you

Do not try to interfere in your relationships with the people around you just yet. You only feel that you control these relationships. In fact, much of this has already been decided. That does not mean you must accept everything in silence. Not at all. You cannot create and direct these events yet, but you must be able to control your own behavior in a hard situation.

You can hardly control how other people feel about you, but you can respond to what happens in the right way.

Work

At work you feel more sure of yourself. Much more depends on you here than in your relationships. You have had enough time to decide how you want to live in the coming years. Now it is time to carry your plans out.

Gather your strength and move slowly toward your goal in spite of the obstacles. Do not put problems off until better times. Decide for yourself that the present time is the best one. Then you will feel like the master of your fate instead of a humble servant of its will.

Your wish

If you can handle a storm of events and steer your life in the right direction, you will reach what you want without much trouble. In a word, your wish depends entirely on you.

Do not give up if you see events turning against you. Judge the situation calmly and wisely. If you decide the result is worth the effort, keep going in the direction you chose.

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 53 is Wind/Wood over Mountain. Its two inner, or nuclear, trigrams are Fire over Water. What the eight trigrams mean.

Upper trigram (lines 4–6): Xùn · Wind/Wood Gentle and penetrating
Lower trigram (lines 1–3): Gèn · Mountain Still and stopping
Upper nuclear (lines 3–5): Lí · Fire Clinging and bright
Lower nuclear (lines 2–4): Kǎn · Water Deep and dangerous

Hexagrams this one is connected to by its structure rather than by its number.

Opposite and Reversed:: 54. Marrying Maiden — Every one of the six lines flipped and the same figure turned upside down.
Nuclear:: 64. Before Completion — The figure formed by the four inner lines.