I Ching Jin Meaning: Hexagram 35 Explained

Draw Jin 晉 and the room brightens a little. It is a hexagram of going up. Bright is not the same as grabbing.

Jin is Fire over Earth, Li above Kun. Fire above, Earth below. The sun rising from the ground: 「明出地上」— light coming out over the earth. Reverse above and below and you have Ming Yi 明夷, Earth over Fire: light buried in the ground. One is ascent; one is injury and hiding. Flip the positions and fortune and misfortune swap for the whole article. For divination, say the full name first: Huo Di Jin (火地晉).

The Xu Gua says: 「物不可以終壯，故受之以晉。晉者，進也。」 Things cannot end in Zhuang, so Jin follows. Jin means advance. After Da Zhuang 大壯 you cannot only butt. You have to know how to go in. Advance and strength are not the same. Strength is large force. Advance is walking to a place where you can be seen. People whose ram is still in the hedge will advance Jin very ugly.

Jin: light over the earth is ascent, and being received

The Tuan says: 「晉，進也。明出地上。順而麗乎大明，柔進而上行。」 Jin is advance. Light comes out over the earth. Yielding, clinging to great brightness, the yielding advances and goes upward. Below, Kun is yielding; above, Li is brightness. You attach, yielding, to a great light, and the yielding current goes up. The judgment is concrete: 「康侯用錫馬蕃庶，晝日三接。」 The Marquis of Kang is granted many horses, and in one day is received three times. In divination this is promotion, being summoned, a patron looking at you several times, a case passing three gates in a day.

So Jin is not being strong at home. Someone outside receives you. However able you are, without that “three receptions,” Jin stays in imagination. Draw Jin and look for the person who can receive you, the platform that can shine. If there is none, first do the yielding well, so light has something to cling to.

The Xiang says: light coming out over the earth, Jin. The superior person makes their own bright virtue shine. Shine the virtue out. Not shout it. Do the work so people can see it. Self-illumination is not self-praise.

Career and wealth: you can advance, but the advance must be clean

Ask about career and draw Jin: as a whole it suits competing, interviewing, submitting for review, handing results up. Three receptions in daylight: the pace is fast, replies are fast. Suit appearing. Do not hide. Hiding is Ming Yi’s strategy. Use it in Jin and you miss the reception.

The first line already throws cold water. 「晉如摧如，貞吉。罔孚，裕無咎。」 Advance as if crushed. Persistence is still fortunate. Not yet trusted; be spacious, and there is no blame. Draw the initial six: a promotion, a submission, a proposal sent back is not necessarily the end. Charge while being crushed, and you turn Jin into shame. Yu 裕 is room in the heart, and room in the calendar — time for someone to look at you again.

Six in the second: 晉如愁如，貞吉。受茲介福于其王母. Advance as if anxious. Persistence fortunate. Receiving this great blessing from the queen mother. You have gone in, yet the face is anxious. Persistence is fortunate. The large blessing comes from the queen mother, from elders, from an inner layer. Draw this line and promotion is not necessarily happy. Duty, eyes on you, the family’s hopes come up together. The blessing is real. So is the anxiety. Allow yourself to worry, and still walk the correct step to the end. Many students think Jin should be joyful, and seeing “as if anxious” they think the reading is wrong. It is not. Jin can advance while anxious.

Six in the third: 眾允，悔亡. The multitude consents; regret vanishes. This is Jin’s line that most looks like “everyone recognizes it.” Title, team, the family end, begin to nod. You can go forward. Stop vetoing yourself.

Nine in the fourth: 晉如鼫鼠，貞厲. Advance like a shi-rat. Persistence is dangerous. The shi-rat is the rodent that wants to go in, is greedy, is afraid, and fidgets in small motions. Persistence is still dangerous. Draw this line and in career the common picture is: the seat is not enough, so you first scoop what is beside it, step on others, want everything. Greedy advance. The promotion has not come down, and you already change the title, occupy the seat, pull resources onto your desk. Dangerous. Pull the claws back, and Jin looks like the Marquis of Kang, not like a rat.

Six in the fifth: 悔亡，失得勿恤，往吉，無不利. Regret vanishes. Do not fret gain and loss. To go is fortunate; nothing is unfavorable. This is Jin’s ruling mind. Ask about a post, an exam, whether to go out this time, and six in the fifth is the most blunt: do what you should do. Do not nail your eyes to the scoreboard. People who fret gain and loss make the light shake by themselves.

Upper nine: 晉其角，維用伐邑，厲吉，無咎，貞吝. Advance with the horn. Use it only to attack your own town. Dangerous yet fortunate, no blame; persistence brings regret. You have advanced to using the horn. You can only use it to tidy a small city of your own. Use it to collide outward and you go too far. Dangerous yet fortunate, no blame — still, persistence brings regret. Draw the upper line: you may reorganize inside, close out, finish a small range. Do not take this bit of ascent to open a larger war. The horn is a habit left from Da Zhuang. Jin at the top still using the horn: the name will be stingy.

In wealth, Jin looks like income that comes because you were seen: a bonus, an order, a patron’s introduction. It comes relatively in the open, and it depends on the occasion. The shi-rat’s scooping: even if money comes in, danger comes in with it. “Do not fret gain and loss” in wealth means do not let one sum you did not get scramble the next step. The Marquis of Kang’s horses were granted. They were not led out of the stable by himself.

Jin in love: the bond is seen, not a private fever

Ask about love and draw Jin: the relationship moves toward the light — meeting parents, going public, the circle of friends knowing, bringing the person into a room. If you are single, you may meet in a public place, or someone who was ambiguous becomes willing to be seen. Suit appearing. Do not Jin only in a late-night window.

If you are already together, Jin can push the relationship up a grade: settling it, meeting elders, putting the two of you on the table. Six in the second’s anxiety is common; meeting the parents is anxious by nature. Persistence is fortunate; blessing comes from the queen mother. The queen mother need not be a grandmother. It is whoever in the house can nod, the inner layer of recognition. Skip that layer in a hurry, and Jin is fire without earth: bright for a moment, then it drifts.

The shi-rat in love is demanding a seat before you are recognized: changing the form of address, managing the other person’s life, playing “already settled” in front of outsiders. Persistence is dangerous. The Marquis of Kang is received first; then the horses come. No seat, and you already lead the horse: that is the rat.

Do not fret gain and loss, in love: whether they reply, whether the family receives you — finish the ritual you should finish. Do not nail the heart to every “read.” Nail it, and “advance as if crushed” will be magnified by you into the end of the world.

Jin is not Xian 咸. Xian is influence; it can be very private. Jin is advancing into the light. Jin without Xian, made public, will be empty. Xian without Jin stays forever at the fingertips. The two hexagrams can be read together. Whether the family end nods still has to ask Jia Ren 家人.

In class, two kinds of people fail ascent most

One kind flips the table when crushed. The first line clearly wrote persistence fortunate, spacious, no blame. They are not spacious. They want justice on the spot. After they demand it, the three receptions are gone.

One kind, once they rise, frets gain and loss, or once they rise becomes a rat. Six in the fifth tells you not to fret. Nine in the fourth tells you not to be a shi-rat. Both sentences govern the hands after you have gone in.

I have students use the Marquis of Kang as a ruler. Was I received this time? Did I take the horses as a grant, not as something I should grab? Can I appear in the rooms I should appear in during the day, then go home and sleep, instead of counting at night how many times I was looked at?

The sun rising from the ground is a natural advance. What you do is yield, be bright, and not chisel daybreak with a horn. The next hexagram is Ming Yi. Advance must bring some injury. People who have done well in Jin should know that light will enter the earth. Not to frighten you. So that when you rise you make the bright virtue shine, and when injury comes you have something to hide.

Related: I Ching Da Zhuang Meaning | Hexagram 34 How to Read: The Power of the Great, How to Hold Force, I Ching Ming Yi Meaning | Hexagram 36 How to Read: Darkening of the Light, How to Hide Brightness. After you rise, if the house must hold: I Ching Jia Ren Meaning | Hexagram 37 How to Read: The Family, Marriage and Ordering the House.

I Ching Jin FAQ

If I draw Jin, will I certainly be promoted or pass the exam?

There is qi of advancing and being seen. It is not a notice. The first line can be crushed. Nine in the fourth is dangerous through greed. The upper nine is useful only in a small range. If the question is “this interview,” Jin’s direction is right. You still look at which line, and whether you actually handed the work in. Without handing it in, light cannot rise.

Advance as if crushed: is this attempt over?

A setback; persistence is still fortunate. Not yet trusted; be spacious, no blame. This line’s danger is taking one rejection as a verdict on the person. Leave room for a second reception, and you look like the Marquis of Kang, not like someone who smashes the sign.

Do not fret gain and loss: does that mean success and failure do not matter?

Not that they do not matter. That you should not fret. Fret is worry, binding the heart to gain and loss. Do the work, count the scores — do not spend the whole night sitting with that one sum. To go is fortunate: fortune is in going forward. Stopping there to settle accounts is not.

Original Da Zhuang into Jin, or original Jin into Ming Yi: how do I read it?

Da Zhuang into Jin: gather force into ascent, stop butting, go to be received. Jin into Ming Yi: advance will injure, or after this brightness you must begin to hide. The second is not an order to cancel Jin. Injury follows Jin by design. Finish the advance that should be finished, and prepare hard persistence.

For an online hexagram, try free love divination and match both birthdays with this reading.