Kui: estrangement told through meetings

Fire above, lake below: a hexagram of two directions

Kui (睽) is Li (fire) above and Dui (lake) below. The Shuo Gua gives Li the word “clinging”, and Dui the word “pleased”. Read upward, the lines are yang, yang, yin, yang, yin, yang. The yin lines occupy only the third and fifth places, and each has a yang line on either side.

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Kui and its reversed hexagram Jiaren: the reversed hexagram turns the whole figure upside down, so the fire that is above in Kui sits below in Jiaren.

The judgment and the Commentary: why apart, and why still fortunate

The judgment of Kui is three words: in small matters, good fortune. The Commentary on the Judgments takes it in three steps: why this is estrangement, why it is still fortunate, and finally three pairs that stretch the word to heaven and earth, man and woman, and the myriad things.

Kui: fire moves upward and the lake moves downward. Two women live together, but their wills do not go the same way. It is pleased and clings to brightness; the soft advances and moves upward, attains the middle and answers the firm. Therefore, in small matters, good fortune.

The first half can be seen on the figure at a glance: flames rise, lake water sinks, and the upper and lower trigrams part from the start. The second half can be checked too. The lower trigram Dui is “pleased” and the upper trigram Li is “bright”, with the pleased one below and the bright one above, which is “pleased and clinging to brightness”. Line 5 is the yin line seated at the center of Li, and it faces line 2, a yang line at the center of Dui; a yin and a yang that answer across the two trigrams are what “attains the middle and answers the firm” refers to. Because of these, fortune comes, but only for small matters.

The last three pairs of clauses in the Commentary share one pattern:

Heaven and earth are at odds, yet their work is the same. Man and woman are at odds, yet their wills connect. The myriad things are at odds, yet their affairs are of one kind. How great is the use of the time of estrangement!

Each pair admits the separation first and then names one thing held in common: the same work, wills that connect, affairs of a kind. The closing “use of the time” says that estrangement has its own use when its time comes.

The Great Image: alike yet different, in the opposite order

The Great Image (大象) of Kui is one sentence:

Above, fire; below, a lake: Kui. The noble person is alike, and yet different.

“Above, fire; below, a lake” just reads the figure. The conduct drawn from it is “alike and yet different”: the two words are joined by “and yet” and are not spelled out further. Tradition usually reads it as keeping one’s own differences within what is shared.

Read the two side by side and “same” and “different” come in opposite order. The Commentary speaks of heaven, earth and the myriad things and runs from apart to shared. The Great Image gives the noble person a way of acting and runs from shared to distinct.

Six lines: five of them say “see” or “meet”

Kui is a hexagram of estrangement, yet its six statements are nearly all about encounters. Line 1 “sees a bad man”, line 2 “meets the lord in a lane”, line 3 “sees the cart dragged back” (and its Small Image adds “meets the firm”), line 4 “meets a worthy man”, and line 6 “sees a pig covered in mud” and, going on, “meets rain”. In five of the six lines a word for seeing or meeting appears. Only line 5 is different: it speaks of “his clan”, his own kin.

The early encounters carry difficulty. Line 1 has lost a horse and is told not to chase it; it comes back by itself. He sees a bad man, and the Small Image says this is how to avoid blame. At line 2 he runs into “the lord” in a lane, and the Small Image comments that he has kept to the road. Line 3 is written heaviest: the cart is dragged back, the ox is held fast, the man is branded on the forehead and his nose is cut. The statement judges “no beginning, but an end”, and the Small Image says the position is unfitting and the end is “meeting the firm”.

Lines 4 and 6 both say “alone in estrangement”, and their endings are alike. Line 4 meets a worthy man, and they exchange trust: danger, but no blame. Line 6 first draws the bow and afterwards lays it down, because the visitors turn out to be no bandits but a party come to arrange a marriage. Tradition usually reads the “lay down” as setting the bow aside. Going on and meeting rain is fortunate, and the Small Image comment is “the many doubts are gone”.

The pig and the bow in line 6 can be linked to this Kan. Lines 3 to 5 of Kui are yin, yang, yin, which make Kan. The Shuo Gua says “Kan is the pig” and, elsewhere, that Kan is “the bow and the wheel”. Both images in line 6 can be found there.

Jiaren, Jian and Jiji: neighbors of Kui

Turn Kui upside down and you get Jiaren (家人), so Jiaren is the reversed hexagram (综卦) of Kui (see the figure above). The Xu Gua places Kui after Jiaren and says that when the way of the household runs out, things drift apart, adding that Kui means to be at odds. The Za Gua gives each of the two one word: Kui is “outer” and Jiaren is “inner”.

The inverse hexagram (错卦) is Jian (蹇), which you get by changing every line of Kui to its opposite. The nuclear hexagram (互卦) is Jiji (既济): lines 2 to 4 are yang, yin, yang (Li) and lines 3 to 5 are yin, yang, yin (Kan), and with Li below and Kan above they stack into Jiji.

The hexagram after Kui is Jian. The Xu Gua’s link is that estrangement is bound to bring hardship.