ShānXiàYǒuLéi Yí JūnZǐ Yǐ ShènYánYǔ JiéYǐnShí
山下有雷 頤 君子以 慎言語 節飲食
The thunder rumbles below the mountain, which is a natural image for hexagram Yí 頤. Learning from this, a wise person is cautious in speech and moderate in eating.
Figure 1. Image of hexagram Yí 頤 - I made a visit with my student, Anne, to her home in southern France. When she asked me what I would like to drink, I answered that I would be happy to drink anything that she feels has kept her living life to the fullest for her impressive 100 years. So, with a warm smile she offered me champagne in a glass from her own grandmother’s wedding ceremony. My student Catherine took this picture as we all enjoyed our time together. I immediately felt that this moment perfectly captured the essence of hexagram Yí 頤!
This is a typical DaXiang sentence, which starts with the first four words describing the symbolic structure of hexagram Yí ䷚. The first word Shān means mountain, which is the symbolic name of the top trigram Gěn ☶. Please remember that in Yijing symbolism, there are countless objects, events, or phenomenon that can be used to represent a trigram. For instance, as the key meaning of the trigram Gěn is stability or steady, therefore, anything that holds the quality of stability can stand for the trigram. The trigram Gěn has been commonly interpreted as back, hand, or, when it refers to the body, the upper jaw (To learn more about the symbolism of the trigrams, please read my book Seeking the Spirit of the Book of Change, London: Singing Dragon. 2009). The next word, Xià, means low, below, under, decreasing, descend, or downward. The third word, Yǒu, means have, has, hold, contain, or carry. The fourth word, Léi, means thunder, which is the symbolic name of the bottom trigram Zhèn ☳, which stands for unsteady, instability, bow, cup, shaking, motion, feet, lower jaw, and much more.
Together, these words describe the image of hexagram Yí. We could interpret these four words as the thunder rumbles below the mountain, movements hidden under the stableness, or the tranquility that generates the new life energy.
In my previous hexagram article, Hexagram ䷔ ShìHé 噬嗑 / Bite Through Shake off the obstacles, I said “when we study Yijing symbolism, it is important for us to break free from literal meanings and seek out the symbolic meanings behind the words. This is especially true with DaXiang (The Great Image) sentences.” Figure 1 is an example of this idea. Let’s take a closer look at the image again to understand how it is related with this hexagram.
The two laughing hearts, holding cups together depict the entire DaXiang sentence of hexagram Yí — hands holding cups is the structure of the first four words we just discussed, with the hands representing the top trigram Gěn/Mountain while the cup is a typical representation for the bottom trigram Zhèn/Thunder. We can easily imagine that two people drinking together reveals information that is related with the mouth. This part is the essential wisdom of this hexagram. Allow me to explain further.
