Gèn · Keeping Still (Mountain)
Upper trigram: ☶ Mountain · lower trigram: ☶ Mountain
Hold the back still, halt the mind in time. A rest that is not flight but mastery.
The archaic ideogram shows an immense eye becoming still to fix on a precise point, joined to the drawing of a man pivoting on his heels to stop dead before an impassable obstacle. "Gen" symbolises the halting of variations, the stillness of the ancestral mountain, self-mastery through emotional detachment and inner cohesion.
Voluntary stillness and recentring
This hexagram describes the exact opposite of the previous one: a phase of absolute calm, of meditation, or of refusal to be dragged along by the world's agitation. The situation demands stopping every untimely movement, suspending outer projects and concentrating exclusively on one's inner alignment. It is the moment to blow the whistle and call playtime to an end.
Master one's mind by anchoring in the present
The strategy consists in cutting the bridges to the ego's solicitations: "Steadying one's back, one no longer feels one's body; going into one's courtyard, one no longer sees one's people: no fault". The Accomplished Being gives purchase neither to their anxious feelings nor to the adversary's provocations. By remaining impassive and unmoved like a mountain, you dissolve conflicts and recover your inner sovereignty.
From a structural point of view, the figure is formed by the doubling of the trigram Gen (the Mountain, stabilisation). The movement is directed downward, anchoring itself solidly in the ground. It is the technique of evasion through stillness: faced with an escalating conflict, remaining marble-calm and refusing to react breaks the aggressor's dynamic and restores peace.
Each line is read only if it is changing in your cast. A changing line transforms the figure: the link under each text shows which hexagram it leads to.
Three-coin or yarrow-stalk cast, changing lines, outlook figure — computed on your device, no account.