蒙Meng · Youthful Ignorance
In one sentence
You can't see clearly right now because you don't yet understand. It is time to go and ask, not to keep guessing.
You are at the stage of having no experience and not knowing where the door is, like a spring that has just welled up at the foot of a mountain and doesn't yet know which way to flow. Sincerely seek out someone who understands and ask. Ask once, listen carefully, and do as you are told. Don't keep asking about the same thing over and over until you get the answer you want.
Asking about work, love or money
- Work
- You do not yet know the ropes here. You cannot see clearly because you lack experience, not because your luck is bad. Do not sit there guessing on your own; go sincerely and ask someone who understands. When they have told you, listen carefully and do as they say. Do not take the same question from person to person until you get the answer you want to hear.
- Love
- You have not really understood the other person, or this relationship, yet; many of your ideas are only your own guesses. If you have something to ask, ask it once, sincerely, and then trust the answer you hear. Testing and questioning over and over only wears people out, and it will not draw out anyone's true heart.
- Money
- In this money matter you are still a beginner. Do not touch what you do not understand, and above all do not bet on a feeling. Go and learn first: ask someone who truly knows the field and has no stake in your choice, and when you have listened, honestly do as they say. Paying a little for the lesson is fine. Trying things out with big money is not.
This is the hexagram as a whole. If your cast has changing lines, the line text governs; each line's page has its own reading for work, love and money.
The judgment
In plain wordsThings go through. It is not I who go seeking the ignorant child; it is the child who comes seeking me. The first time he asks in earnest, I tell him. To ask again and again is to take it lightly, and one who takes it lightly is not told. It is favorable to stay true.
The Tuan commentary
蒙，山下有險，險而止，蒙。蒙亨，以亨行，時中也。匪我求童蒙，童蒙求我，志應也。初筮告，以剛中也。再三瀆，瀆則不告，瀆蒙也。蒙以養正，聖功也。
Meng: below the mountain there is danger. Danger, and a halt: Meng. "Meng. Success": it acts through success, and hits the center of the time. "It is not I who seek the ignorant child; the ignorant child seeks me": the purposes respond to each other. "At the first divination I answer": because it is firm and in the center. "To ask a second and third time is disrespect, and disrespect gets no answer": that would be to treat Meng with disrespect. To nurture what is correct in the ignorant is the work of a sage.
The Tuan (“judgment”) commentary is one of the Ten Wings. It explains the hexagram name and the judgment from the two trigrams and the positions of the lines.
The image
山下出泉，蒙。君子以果行育德。
A spring comes out at the foot of the mountain: Meng (Youthful Ignorance). The noble one acts with resolve and nurtures virtue.
The lines
Six at the beginning
Text發蒙，利用刑人，用說桎梏，以往吝。Opening up the ignorant. It is favorable to use punishment, and then to take off the shackles. To go on that way brings humiliation.In plain wordsIn opening the mind of someone ignorant, punish when punishment is due; after punishing, ease off a little and see how he does afterward. Keep punishing without ever letting go, and you will be left with regrets. It is so in teaching people, and the same in handling anything. More on this line →
Nine in the second place
Text包蒙吉，納婦吉，子克家。Bearing with the ignorant: good fortune. Taking a wife: good fortune. The son can carry the household.In plain wordsBeing able to bear with those who don't understand: good fortune. Like marrying a capable wife: good fortune. Like a son who can hold the family up. Though you are in a lower position, you can shoulder what those above hand to you. More on this line →
Six in the third place
Text勿用取女，見金夫，不有躬，无攸利。Do not take this woman. She sees a man of gold and loses hold of herself. Nothing is favorable.In plain wordsDo not marry a woman like this: she sees a man with money and cannot keep hold of herself. Joining up with someone who forgets what is right at the sight of gain brings no good at all. More on this line →
Six in the fourth place
Text困蒙，吝。Trapped in ignorance. Humiliation.In plain wordsStuck in confusion, with no one around who understands. A pity. Only by going out of your way to get close to someone who does understand can you avoid it. More on this line →
Six in the fifth place
Text童蒙，吉。The ignorance of a child. Good fortune.In plain wordsSimple and open-minded like a child, and willing to be taught. Good fortune. More on this line →
Nine at the top
Text擊蒙，不利為寇，利禦寇。Striking at ignorance. It is not favorable to act as a robber; it is favorable to fend off robbers.In plain wordsTreating ignorance by hitting at it. Control him too harshly and press him too hard, and you harm him instead. Using the force to block temptation from outside and protect his true heart is what fits. This is not only about teaching; it holds for everything. More on this line →
Lines are counted from the bottom. “Nine” is a yang (solid) line, “six” a yin (broken) line. A line applies to your reading only when it is a changing line.
Related hexagrams
Primary, resulting, nuclear, opposite and inverted hexagrams explained →
In the hexagram calendar
In the Tang monk Yixing’s Dayan calendar, Meng belongs to the second pentad of Start of Spring, “Hibernating insects stir” (February 9 to February 13, 2027).