Hexagram 27 of 64 · Mountain over Thunder
Nourishment
頤 · Yí
What are you feeding yourself with — food, content, company, work? It is becoming you. Choose accordingly.
The Judgment
Perseverance brings good fortune. Pay heed to nourishment and what one fills the mouth with.
The Image
At the foot of the mountain, thunder: the image of Providing Nourishment. Thus the superior man is careful of his words and temperate in eating and drinking.
What this hexagram is really saying
Yí is the hexagram of nourishment in the broadest sense — what you take in becomes what you become. The image of the hexagram is literally a mouth: two yang lines at top and bottom, four yin lines in the middle. The text says: "pay heed to nourishment and to what one fills the mouth with."
In the original context, the line about "what one fills the mouth with" referred both to food and to speech — what enters and what leaves. The modern translation is broader still. What media you consume. Who you spend your hours with. What problems you let into your mind. What conversations you have. The relationship you stay in. The job you do every day. All of it is nourishment, and all of it is shaping you.
The Wilhelm commentary makes the precise point: this hexagram is about whether your nourishment is appropriate to what you're trying to become. A growing child needs different food than an athlete than an elderly person. Someone trying to build a company needs different inputs than someone trying to write a novel than someone trying to recover from burnout. The question Yí asks isn't whether your inputs are good in general, but whether they are right for you, now.
Audit. Cut what doesn't serve. Add what does. The thing you fill your mouth with is the thing you become.
Questions that tend to get this hexagram
- “What am I filling my time with that isn't serving me?”
- “Who in my life is feeding me well, and who is depleting me?”
- “Am I consuming the right things for what I'm trying to become?”
- “What would change if I treated my inputs as seriously as my outputs?”
When the lines change
A six or a nine in any of the six positions transforms this hexagram into another — that second hexagram describes where your situation is heading. The text of each changing line is its own micro-reading. More on reading changing lines →
Related hexagrams
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