艮 · gèn · ☶
Mountain
The mountain stops. It is the hand, the dog, the youngest son; the footpath, the small stone, the gate.
- Quality
- Stillness
- Image
- the mountain
- In the family
- the youngest son
- Direction
- northeast
- Season
- late winter and early spring
In a reading
Gen brings a pause, a limit or the need to stay where you are. Stop, put what you have in order, and don't move ahead until the moment calls for it.
The image
Two open lines below and one solid line on top: a quiet mass capped by a firm roof. This is the mountain. The Shuogua (說卦) gives it the quality 止, to stop: knowing when to halt, the way a mountain simply stays put.
Symbols
- Family: the youngest son, because the yang line sits in the top place.
- Body: the hands (手), which hold and restrain.
- Animal: the dog (狗), which guards the gate.
It's also linked to footpaths, small stones, gateways, the gatekeeper, and fruit.
Direction and season
In the Later Heaven arrangement, Gen sits in the northeast, between late winter and early spring. The Shuogua says 成言乎艮, completion is spoken in Gen: here all things come to an end and start again. It's the hinge of the year. In the Earlier Heaven arrangement, Gen sits in the northwest.
In a hexagram
As the lower trigram, Gen is inner restraint, calm, a limit you set for yourself. As the upper trigram, it's an obstacle or a pause imposed from outside. Beneath earth it makes hexagram 15, Simplicity, a mountain hidden in the plain; above earth, hexagram 23, The Fall. Doubled, mountain over mountain is hexagram 52, Abiding: stillness that holds.
To see all eight side by side, read the guide to the trigrams.