Six Doors · No. 27
第27卦 颐 Yí · Nourishment
Essence: Watch what you feed, and what you let feed you.
I
Judgment
Nourishment has two faces: what you feed, and what feeds you. You can read anyone by what they cultivate and what they consume—food, information, company alike. The old advice stands: earn your own sustenance, and screen it yourself.
II
Trigrams
Upper
艮 Mountain
Lower
震 Thunder
III
The lines
- Line 1Setting aside your own inner sufficiency to gape enviously at another's plate—abandoning the treasure you already carry is the misfortune here.
- Line 2Begging nourishment downward, from sources that owe you nothing—support sought against the grain of things fails when pursued.
- Line 3Rejecting real nourishment for what merely stimulates—persist in that and a decade goes barren.
- Line 4Turning downward for support in order to feed others in turn—watchful as a crouched tiger—is hunger put to right use.
- Line 5Aware you cannot provide alone, stay put and lean on the truly capable; nourish through them, and attempt no big crossing yet.
- Line 6The one everyone else draws nourishment from: carry that weight with constant awareness of its danger, and even the great crossing is possible.
IV
All the doors
Every single-step transition available from where you stand.
- Line 123 剥 · Splitting Apart
Erosion runs its course; guard the uneaten seed.
- Line 241 损 · Decrease
Give from the surface to strengthen the core.
- Line 322 贲 · Grace
Grace adorns but never carries; end in plain white.
- Line 421 噬嗑 · Biting Through
Bite through the obstruction; only then can the jaws close.
- Line 542 益 · Increase
Those above give, and everything below grows.
- Line 624 复 · Return
At the darkest turning, the light begins its return.
V