Six Doors · No. 13

第13卦同人 Tóng Rén · Fellowship

Essence: Fellowship in the open field, beyond the clan wall.

Judgment

Draw the circle of us out in the open field, not inside the clan wall—fellowship gets stronger as it gets less private. A union built on shared public aims can attempt river-crossing ventures. The conditions: transparent motives and clear internal order.

Sixty-four hexagrams, six doors each

Trigrams

Upper

乾 Heaven

heaven

Lower

离 Fire

fire

III

The lines

Line 1Meet people at the open gate; connection begun in plain sight starts clean.
Line 2Fellowship limited to your own clan is already a narrowing; the exclusiveness will cost you.
Line 3Weapons hidden in the grass, spying from the hilltop—mistrust like this freezes the bond for years.
Line 4Mounted on the wall yet declining to attack: the pullback from conflict is itself the good outcome.
Line 5First the wailing, then the laughter: kept apart by force of circumstance, the true partners fight through and meet.
Line 6Fellowship out in the far suburbs—free of regret, but short of the great shared purpose.

All the doors

Every single-step transition available from where you stand.

Inverse (綜) · Opposite (錯)

Inverse (綜)

Opposite (錯)

Written on this

Hexagram 13, Tóng Rén (Fellowship): The Open Field and Its Six Lines

A close reading of Hexagram 13, Tóng Rén: fire under heaven, why fellowship grows stronger the wider you draw it, its six lines, and reading it when cast.

5 min read