Xùn · Wind/Wood

One broken line at the bottom, under two solid ones.

Traditional associations

Attribute: Gentle and penetrating
Family role: The eldest daughter
Direction: Southeast
Element: Wood

The direction follows the Later Heaven arrangement and the element is a later Five Phases correspondence; other diagrams and interpretive traditions organize them differently. How the eight trigrams fit together.

Reading Xùn

Xùn is a single broken line at the bottom with two unbroken above it. It mirrors Zhèn in every position, and where Zhèn enters with force, Xùn enters through the gap. The opening is underneath, which is why the traditional readings describe it as getting in rather than arriving.

It carries two images. Wind, which goes where there is space for it, and wood, which grows into the same spaces slowly. Both describe influence that works slowly and by persistence. In the Shuogua scheme the three trigrams with a single yin line are the daughters, ordered the same way as the sons, so Xùn is the eldest.

Xùn over Xùn is hexagram 57. Turn the trigram upside down and the broken line moves to the top, giving Duì, Lake. Its opposite in every line is Zhèn, Thunder, and the pair is often read as two ways of setting something in motion: one sudden, one gradual.

The 15 hexagrams built from Xùn

Eight place it in the lower half and eight in the upper. Hexagram 57 appears in both, because it is Xùn doubled.

As the lower trigram

lines 1–3, the inner or beginning half

As the upper trigram

lines 4–6, the outer half

Browse all 64 hexagrams, or cast your own reading with the three-coin method.