Upper trigram
☶
Mountain (Gen) above
Stillness and limit.
FamilyYoungest son
ElementEarth
Hexagram 18 of 64
I Ching hexagram 18 ☶☴ Work on the Decayed
I Ching hexagram 18, Work on the Decayed, is mountain above, wind below. In brief: repairing what was neglected. Counting from the bottom, its solid lines sit in places 2, 3 and 6 and its broken lines in 1, 4 and 5.
- Lines, bottom up
- ⚋⚊⚊⚋⚋⚊ 011001 · 1 = solid
- Trigrams
- Mountain over Wind Gen ☶ / Xun ☴
- Every line changed
- № 17 Following
- In Legge, 1882
- p. 95 Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16
Legge, The Yî King, 1882.
Lower trigram
☴
Wind (Xun) below
Gentle penetration.
FamilyEldest daughter
ElementWood
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What the text says, in plain terms
The Judgement and the Image of hexagram 18
The Judgement
Repairing what has been spoiled. Neglect has let something decay, but careful work on the cause can turn it round — plan before starting and check after finishing.
The Image
Wind trapped at the foot of a mountain, where things stagnate. The lesson is to stir people up and renew their resolve so that stale situations start moving.
A summary of meaning written for this site, not a translation — James Legge’s 1882 translation of the full text follows below. How the Judgement and the Image are read, and which translations to use →
Primary source
Hexagram 18 in James Legge’s translation
“Kû indicates great progress and success (to him who deals properly with the condition represented by it). There will be advantage in (efforts like that of) crossing the great stream. (He should weigh well, however, the events of) three days before the turning point, and those (to be done) three days after it.”
“(The trigram for) a mountain, and below it that for wind, form Kû. The superior man, in accordance with this, (addresses himself to) help the people and nourish his own virtue.”
The lines
- Line 1 · bottom The first line, divided, shows (a son) dealing with the troubles caused by his father. If he be an (able) son, the father will escape the blame of having erred. The position is perilous, but there will be good fortune in the end.
- Line 2 The second line, undivided, shows (a son) dealing with the troubles caused by his mother. He should not (carry) his firm correctness (to the utmost).
- Line 3 The third line, undivided, shows (a son) dealing with the troubles caused by his father. There may be some small occasion for repentance, but there will not be any great error.
- Line 4 The fourth line, divided, shows (a son) viewing indulgently the troubles caused by his father. If he go forward, he will find cause to regret it.
- Line 5 The fifth line, divided, shows (a son) dealing with the troubles caused by his father. He obtains the praise of using (the fit instrument for his work).
- Line 6 · top The sixth line, undivided, shows us one who does not serve either king or feudal lord, but in a lofty spirit prefers (to attend to) his own affairs.
James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 95 — read the original text.
Words in parentheses are Legge’s own: in his preface he explains that they supply what the original writer left unsaid. “Undivided” and “divided” are his terms for yang and yin lines, counted from the bottom. The Image comes from the second appendix of the book, the Treatise on the Symbolism.
Work on the Decayed for a decision
Face the problem you have been avoiding. Look for the root cause, often an inherited habit or an old decision, and fix it deliberately rather than patching the surface.
I Ching 18 in love and relationships
Old patterns, sometimes from family, that have soured things. Naming them honestly is the first step toward repair.
Hexagram 18 at work
Turnarounds, clean-ups and fixing legacy problems. Thorough preparation and follow-up matter as much as the fix itself.
The six lines of hexagram 18
Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yin yang yang yin yin yang — what each position means.
3 yang and 3 yin lines. Two of the six stand in their proper place, and the pair 2–5 answers.
What the two trigrams do to each other
Inner and outer
Wind below — gentle penetration — is the private, inner side of hexagram 18.
Mountain above — stillness and limit — is the world that side meets.
The five-element relation
Wood below controls Earth above. The inner position restrains the outer, which reads as holding back circumstance rather than being carried by it.
Read as a family
The youngest son sits above and the eldest daughter below. A brother and a sister, the younger one on top — siblings rather than parent and child, with the junior one taking the lead.
Calculated from the lines
Hexagrams connected to hexagram 18
Nuclear hexagram
54 · The Marrying Maiden
What is happening beneath the surface.
Lines 2–4 give Dui (Lake) as the lower trigram, lines 3–5 give Zhen (Thunder) as the upper.
Opposite hexagram
17 · Following
The situation turned inside out.
Change all six lines and Mountain over Wind becomes Lake over Thunder.
Inverse hexagram
17 · Following
The situation seen from the other side.
Turn the figure upside down and Mountain over Wind becomes Lake over Thunder.
None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.
The image
Mountain above, Wind below.
Mountain over Wind: stillness and limit meeting gentle penetration.
Sources
Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “I Ching Hexagram 18: Work on the Decayed.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/i-ching/hexagram/18/
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