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Hexagram 04 / 64 · Awareness

Hexagram 4Youthful Learning

Begin with the freedom of not knowing.

/ Meng
UPPER: MOUNTAIN
LOWER: WATER

A modern reflection

A way to look at this moment.

A useful question can take you further than a quick answer. When you are learning, leave room to be corrected and to test ideas through experience. A good teacher can offer a method, but your own patient participation makes the lesson yours.

Sit with this question

What assumption might be keeping you from learning?

One small practice.

Ask one specific question of a person or source you trust.

The image & the structure.

This hexagram places mountain above water. The lower trigram evokes depth and passage; the upper trigram evokes a place to pause. Consider these as images to explore rather than instructions to follow.

The six lines are read from the bottom upward. A solid line is yang; a broken line is yin. In a coin reading, some lines may change and form a relating hexagram. A hexagram on its own does not specify which lines are changing.

Learn about changing lines →
This page contains original modern reflections, not a translation of the I Ching’s Judgment, Image, or individual line texts. Names vary between translations. About our sources and approach.