How to Understand Yuan Heng Li Zhen in the I Ching

The judgment of Qian, yuan heng li zhen, has two readings: the Wenyan's four virtues, and Zhu Xi's oracle reading: great success, favorable to stay true.

The four virtues reading

Yuan is the first of all that is good. Heng is the gathering of all that is excellent. Li is the harmony of all that is right. Zhen is the trunk of all affairs.

This is the reading of the Wenyan (the "Commentary on the Words of the Text"). It takes the four characters yuan heng li zhen (元亨利贞) apart and makes each a virtue: yuan (元) is the first among all goods, heng (亨) is the coming together of what is fine, li (利) is rightness brought into harmony, and zhen (贞) is the trunk that holds up any undertaking. Later writers matched them with spring, summer, autumn and winter, and with benevolence, propriety, rightness and wisdom. This is the moral-philosophical reading; it is about how the noble one models himself on the way of Heaven.

The oracle reading

In his Zhouyi Benyi ("Original Meaning of the Zhouyi"), Zhu Xi argued for going back to the text's original purpose, divination: yuan is "great", heng is "going through", li is "fitting", and zhen is "correct and firm". So yuan heng li zhen means "great success, and it is favorable to stay true". The success is conditional, and the condition is staying true.

Modern scholars, working from the oracle-bone inscriptions, hold that the original meaning of zhen (贞) was "to divine, to put a question to the oracle", so that li zhen (利贞) means "favorable for the matter asked about". This reading has philological evidence behind it, and it can stand alongside Zhu Xi's: you ask and the answer is favorable, but the premise is still that the thing is right.

What to make of it when you cast it

Besides Qian (Heaven), the hexagrams whose judgments contain the four characters yuan heng li zhen include Zhun (Difficult Beginnings), Sui (Following), Lin (Approach), Wuwang (Innocence) and Ge (Revolution); Kun (Earth) has "Great success. It is favorable to stay true as a mare does." None of them is announcing unconditional great good fortune. What they say is: things can go through in a big way, but you must hold to the particular "right course" that the hexagram describes.

That is why this site counts li zhen (利贞) only as "fitting", not as good fortune. For the weight of each verdict word, see How to read good fortune, misfortune, regret, humiliation and no blame.