Hexagram ䷎ 謙 Qian

Be Humble

DiZhongYouShan Qian JunZiYiPouDuoYiGua ChengWuPingShi

地中有山，謙，君子以裒多益寡，稱物平施

There are mountains within the Earth, which is the image of the Qian 謙 hexagram. Learning from this, one uses abundance to help the poor, weighing everything in order to distribute it fairly.

     — DaXiang 大象    

As with the typical DaXiang sentence structure, the first four words describe the pattern found within nature that best represents the hexagram. In this sentence, the first word 地 (Di) means earth, territory, or land, and it is the symbolic name for the top trigram Kun 坤 ☷.

The second word, 中 (Zhong) means center, insider, middle, or within.

The third word 有 (You) is a verb and it means have, be, or exist.

The fourth word, 山 (Shan), means mountain, and is the symbol of the bottom trigram, Gen 艮 ☶. 

Together, these four Chinese characters seem describe an unreal phenomenon, mountains within the earth? We all know that mountains stand high from the earth’s surface. However, from the Daoist perspective, this sentence illustrates the high mountain Qi descending into the earth and creating a harmonious natural world.