Xun, the trigram of wind 巽☴ · quality: penetration
Images
Xun has one yin line beneath two yang lines, the soft entering from below, and its image is wind, and also wood. Its quality is penetration: like the wind it reaches everywhere, going in with the flow of things. In the family it is the eldest daughter, in the body the thigh, among animals the rooster.
| Image | Wind, wood |
|---|---|
| Quality | penetration |
| Family | eldest daughter |
| Body | thigh |
| Animal | rooster |
| Later Heaven direction | southeast |
| Earlier Heaven direction | southwest |
| Earlier Heaven number | 5 |
| Five phases | wood |
The image, quality, family member, body part, animal and Later Heaven direction all come from the Shuogua, the commentary on the trigrams. The Earlier Heaven direction and number come from the chart handed down by the Song scholar Shao Yong; the five phases are a Han-dynasty and later correlation that the Shuogua does not make.
The Shuogua
齊乎巽，巽，東南也，齊也者，言萬物之潔齊也。
They are set in order in Xun. Xun is the southeast; being set in order means that all things are made clean and orderly.
This chapter gives the directions and seasons of the eight trigrams, later called the Later Heaven (King Wen) arrangement.
巽為木，為風，為長女，為繩直，為工，為白，為長，為高，為進退，為不果，為臭。
Xun is wood, wind, the eldest daughter, the plumb line, the craftsman, white, long, high, advancing and retreating, indecision, smell.
From chapter eleven of the Shuogua: the wider range of images for Xun, from nature and family to objects, which readers draw on when interpreting a hexagram.
In the 64 hexagrams
Every hexagram is two trigrams, one above the other. Xun doubled is hexagram 57, Xun (The Gentle Wind).
Xun above
- 9 XiaoxuWind over Heaven
- 61 ZhongfuWind over Lake
- 37 JiarenWind over Fire
- 42 YiWind over Thunder
- 57 XunWind doubled
- 59 HuanWind over Water
- 53 JianWind over Mountain
- 20 GuanWind over Earth