Interpreting the Trigrams

I’ve posted a lot of complex interpretations of the trigrams over the years, but there is also a really simple way to interpret them as well. Basically, you look at them as abstractions of simple concepts.

So let’s look at the trigrams, ☰, ☷, ☴, ☳, ☲, ☵, ☶, ☱.

You could just say the heaven, ☰, is every part expressing the same thing whatever that may be. To be very concrete, all of the lines are the same, everything part is doing the same thing. Earth, ☷, is just splitting something in two halves. Notice this interpretation makes for infinite possibilities including that both halves are doing the same thing. It doesn’t say whether you are talking about a joint or the whole physical body. The double palm change form splits the body in numerous ways. At times the yin and yang channels are split. At times the body is split into left and right halves. At times it is split between the upper and lower, or across the diagonals. You can also split the expansiveness of yang energy with the absorption of yin.

Wind, ☴, is a particular expression of one of those splits where the energy comes into one side and out the other. The horizontal orientation I give it is based on its name, wind. It can be expressed like a the wind blowing through a room, but the direction isn’t point. The most salient quality is the passing through unimpeded. It could be in any direction.

I primarily split the body vertically when doing Thunder, ☳, again based on its name, but the important point is that the energy is brought in and gathered until it can’t be held any longer and then explodes outward. The energy of thunder could be applied equally to any cavity or point in space as well as to the lower tan tien. The “energy” is gathered and then it explodes. What form, movement, or neigung element you use to express this energy is irrelevant.

Fire, ☲, and Water, ☵, splits the inside and outside where the inside is the opposite of the outside and yin and yang orientations are reversed. Mountain, ☶, is a split that creates stillness. The energies are going in opposite directions that creates a balance. Lake, ☱, is a split based on a cyclical pattern which is inferred from the axial pair (this is from the I Ching and the idea of rain falling on the mountain, flowing down to form a lake, and then evaporating to form clouds which produce the rain.).

These are purposely intended to be over simplifications but you can use this type of understanding to practice any part of the 16 part neigung from basic alignments to spiraling energy body to yin/yang lengthening to the left and right channels to the the tan tiens. In the end you will have explored thousands of yin and yang relationships. Your mind will get increasingly comfortable with having many things occurring simultaneously. Eventually you start to be capable of relaxing into allowing both yin and yang to exist at the same time in the same space, and stillness will begin to appear in your practice.