Upper trigram
☷
Earth · Kun
Receptive yielding.
FamilyMother
ElementEarth
Hexagram 15 of 64
☷☶ Modesty
Hexagram 15 of the 64, Modesty, is earth above, mountain below — read as the mountain beneath the earth; strength kept low. Its six lines are 100000, counted from the bottom up, where a broken line is yielding and a solid one firm.
Lower trigram
☶
Mountain · Gen
Stillness and limit.
FamilyYoungest son
ElementEarth
From the Book of Changes itself
The Judgement and the Image
The Judgement
Modesty creates success. The superior person carries things through.
The Image
Within the earth, a mountain. The superior person reduces what is too much and augments what is too little.
These two texts are the hexagram. Everything else — the trigram analysis, the line positions, the modern keyword — is commentary built on top of them. The Judgement states the situation and its outlook; the Image draws the practical conclusion, and by convention begins with what the trigrams show in nature.
Rendered in plain English from the canonical text rather than copied from any one translation. If you want a specific scholarly version, Wilhelm-Baynes and Lynn are the two usually recommended.
The six lines
Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yang yin yin yin yin yin — what each position means.
| Line | This hexagram | What the position means |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | ▬▬ ▬▬ yin | the situation past its peak — completion, or overreach |
| 5 | ▬▬ ▬▬ yin | the ruling position, usually the most favourable in the hexagram |
| 4 | ▬▬ ▬▬ yin | entering the outer sphere — proximity to authority, exposure |
| 3 | ▬▬ ▬▬ yin | the transition point, and the most dangerous position in the figure |
| 2 | ▬▬ ▬▬ yin | the inner sphere — home, private life, what you are among your own |
| 1 | ▬▬▬▬▬ yang | the beginning of the situation, still hidden and barely formed |
What the two trigrams do to each other
Inner and outer
The lower trigram is the inner situation — Mountain, stillness and limit. This is what is happening in you, or in the private side of the matter.
The upper trigram is the outer situation — Earth, receptive yielding. This is the world the inner position meets.
The five-element relation
Both trigrams are Earth, so nothing in the figure pulls against anything else. That makes the reading unusually single-minded — and unusually short of internal correction.
Read as a family
Read as family, this is Mother above and Youngest son below. A parent over a child, which the tradition reads as guidance, authority or constraint depending on the rest of the figure.
The eight trigrams are traditionally assigned family roles — Heaven is the father, Earth the mother, and the remaining six are three sons and three daughters. Which one sits above which is part of how a hexagram is read.
Calculated from the lines
Hexagrams connected to this one
Nuclear hexagram
2 · The Receptive
Built from lines 2-3-4 and 3-4-5 of this figure — the hexagram hidden inside it. Read as what is happening beneath the surface of the situation.
Opposite hexagram
10 · Treading
Every line flipped. The same situation turned inside out — useful for seeing what you are not currently considering.
Inverse hexagram
16 · Enthusiasm
The same figure turned upside down — traditionally read as the situation seen from the other party's side.
None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.
The image
Earth above, Mountain below.
Earth over Mountain: receptive yielding meeting stillness and limit.
That combination is the whole meaning of hexagram 15. Nothing about it is arbitrary — change either trigram and you get a different hexagram with a different reading, which is why the 64 form a system rather than a list.