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Hexagram 40 — Jin, Progress
Chronological no. 40 (binary-weight order) · King Wen no. (traditional) 35 · 晉
By Anibal Edelberto Amiot — Updated October 1, 2026
the middle daughter
the mother
The Sun rises above the Earth: the image of progress. Light gains ground, degree by degree, without a single abrupt leap — a rising movement as sure as it is natural. This is the figure of deserved advancement. Thus the noble one, of his own accord, brings his bright virtue into the light: true progress is never claimed, it simply manifests itself to whoever knows how to wait for daybreak.
Brightness rises, like the sun, toward the recognition of noon. Every true ascent follows its own rhythm, like the sun, which never leaps straight to its zenith. This line says that deserved recognition always arrives in its own time, never before, never after.
The six lines
At the base of the earth, emptiness closes over: what was still an opening begins to fill.
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 action of man, fullness meets its limit: the initiative that led the figure folds back upon itself.
At the sage's seat, emptiness fills: the suppleness that governed with discretion gathers a new force.
At the summit, fullness completes its course and breaks: what had culminated cannot go further without turning back.
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
This hexagram is the binary complement of hexagram 23 — Xu, Waiting (63 − 40 = 23): its patterns have exactly the same shape, only their colours are permuted. Here are the eight patterns of hexagram 23, one for each admissible family.
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
39 — Da Chu, The Taming Power of the Great · 41 — Shi He, Biting Through
Hexagrams sharing a trigram
Same upper trigram (☲ Li): 41 — Shi He, Biting Through · 42 — Wei Ji, Before Completion · 43 — Kui, Opposition · 44 — Lu, The Wanderer · 45 — Li, That Which Clings, Fire · 46 — Ding, The Cauldron · 47 — Da You, Possession in Great Measure
Same lower trigram (☷ Kun): 0 — Kun, The Receptive · 8 — Yu, Enthusiasm · 16 — Bi, Holding Together · 24 — Cui, Gathering Together · 32 — Bo, Splitting Apart · 48 — Guan, Contemplation · 56 — Pi, Standstill
