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Hexagram 17 — Zhun, Difficulty at the Beginning
Chronological no. 17 (binary-weight order) · King Wen no. (traditional) 3 · 屯
By Anibal Edelberto Amiot — Updated October 1, 2026
the middle son
the eldest son
Cloud and Thunder: the image of initial difficulty. Above, water not yet rain; below, the shock that seeks its way without yet finding it. Nothing flows freely, everything searches, everything hesitates at the edge of its own birth. This is the figure of a cluttered beginning, one that must clear itself a path before even knowing where it leads. Thus the noble one, faced with initial disorder, forces nothing: he brings order by patiently weaving the threads together, strand by strand, without yielding to impatience for the outcome.
The seed struggles beneath the earth of the square. Every birth begins in darkness and resistance: the seed does not yet know the form it will take, it only knows how to push. This line speaks of a difficulty that is not a failure but the very condition of any true beginning — nothing great has ever emerged without first having to break free of what held it back.
The six lines
At the base of the earth, fullness stirs: the yang onset that carried the whole figure now yields its place.
The receptive earth reaches its fullness: the silent welcome that carried the lower figure is about to assert itself.
At the threshold between earth and man, suppleness gathers weight: what once yielded by nature is about to harden.
In the listening of man, the hollow fills: the openness that received is about to assert itself.
At the sage's seat, fullness hollows out: the force that governed the figure from its center is about to invert.
At the summit, emptiness reaches its fullest extent and closes: the furthest opening turns toward its opposite.
Source: La Livrée d'Hermès, Anibal Amiot — chapter 7.1 (pp. 63–68). French version of this page.
For the notions used here — magic square, layer and casting, the Yi Jing — see the project lexicon.
The patterns of this hexagram
Eight 12×12 Jacquard patterns are generated from this hexagram, one for each admissible family of the system. Each has its own page: cell, tiling, recolourings and data.
Bases — YANG mutant
Bases — YANG
Pair of two — YANG + YIN mutant
Pair of two — YIN mutant + YANG mutant
Pair of two — YIN + YANG
Pair of two — YIN + YANG mutant
Triple — without YANG
Triple — without YANG mutant
Neighbouring hexagrams
16 — Bi, Holding Together · 18 — Kan, The Abysmal
Hexagrams sharing a trigram
Same upper trigram (☵ Kan): 16 — Bi, Holding Together · 18 — Kan, The Abysmal · 19 — Jie, Limitation · 20 — Jian, Obstruction · 21 — Ji Ji, After Completion · 22 — Jing, The Well · 23 — Xu, Waiting
Same lower trigram (☳ Zhen): 1 — Fu, Return · 9 — Zhen, The Arousing · 25 — Sui, Following · 33 — Yi, Nourishment · 41 — Shi He, Biting Through · 49 — Yi, Increase · 57 — Wu Wang, Innocence
