Hexagram 55 for work
Hexagram 55 Plenty for work and career
At work Feng is the project or organisation at its peak: resources, attention and momentum all present. The Great Image draws a duty from it — the superior person 'decides cases and carries out penalties', using fire's clarity and thunder's decisiveness to settle what is unresolved while the light lasts. The Tuan's 日中則昃 is the lesson: abundance is the time to act, because it is also the beginning of the decline.
The lines are about seeing and acting in fullness. One and four are the working partnership of clarity and movement, equals who should stay equal. Two is the clear-sighted person screened from a leader who cannot see them, and should work by trust rather than approach. Three is the able person whose arm is broken by the darkness above and who should attempt nothing large. Five gathers the brilliant and is praised for it. Six is the enterprise that grew into an empty house. A changing line in the lower trigram asks whether your clarity can reach those who decide; one in the upper trigram asks whether the movement is still going somewhere.
The hexagram in brief
Thunder and lightning together: abundance. The king reaches it; no sorrow — be like the sun at noon. But the sun at noon begins to set: fullness is a moment, not a possession.
Use the peak to act and to be generous, and prepare for the natural decline without grief.
The judgment
豐：亨，王假之，勿憂，宜日中。Făng intimates progress and development. When a king has reached the point (which the name denotes) there is no occasion to be anxious (through fear of a change). Let him be as the sun at noon.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 豐 Plenty has its own page:
- 初九Nine at the beginningmeeting one's match · equals · ten days
- 六二Six in the second placescreened · stars at noon · sincerity moves
- 九三Nine in the third placebanner-dark · broken arm · not for great things
- 九四Nine in the fourth placescreened again · meeting one's equal · act now
- 六五Six in the fifth placebrilliance comes · blessing and praise · the receptive ruler
- 上六Six at the tophouse too large · no one at the door · three years unseen
The same hexagram for
Questions
- What does hexagram 55, Plenty, mean for a career question?
- At work Feng is the project or organisation at its peak: resources, attention and momentum all present. The Great Image draws a duty from it — the superior person 'decides cases and carries out penalties', using fire's clarity and thunder's decisiveness to settle what is unresolved while the light lasts. The Tuan's 日中則昃 is the lesson: abundance is the time to act, because it is also the beginning of the decline.
- What does Hexagram 55, 豐 Plenty, mean?
- Thunder and lightning together: abundance. The king reaches it; no sorrow — be like the sun at noon. But the sun at noon begins to set: fullness is a moment, not a possession.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).