Fire rises to meet heaven: joining with others broadly and without bias. The text favors open, principled union and finds narrow, private bonds a cause for shame.
Fire ☲, bright and clinging, lies below heaven ☰, whose quality is strength. Zhu Xi notes that fire flames upward to join the sky, and that the single yin line in the second place is joined by all five yang lines. The theme is being at one with others: success comes when the union is broad and free of private bias, and when it accords with the noble person's way.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
同人于野，亨。利涉大川，利君子貞。
Joining with people in the open country. Success. It is favorable to cross the great river. It is favorable for the noble person to stay correct and firm.
Tong ren means being at one with others. Fire flares up to meet heaven above it; the single yin line, central and correct in the second place, answers the fifth, and all five yang lines join with it. Zhu Xi reads “in the open country” as wide, far-reaching and free of private bias, and says this brings success, while strength in motion carries one across the river. Bright and cultured within, firm without, centered and properly matched: this is the noble person's way, and joining with others benefits only when it accords with that way.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
天與火，同人。君子以類族辨物。
Heaven together with fire: Tong Ren. The noble person, accordingly, sorts people by kind and distinguishes among things.
Heaven is above and fire burns upward, so the two share one nature. Zhu Xi reads the noble person's sorting and distinguishing as examining differences in order to reach real agreement. Unity, in this image, comes from discernment rather than from blurring distinctions.
Lines (爻辭)
From the bottom line to the top. In the line names, nine (九) marks a yang line and six (六) a yin line.
Line 1, yang (初九)changing line in the shared reading
同人于門，无咎。
Joining with people at the gate. No blame.
At the very start of joining, the first line has no private ties yet: it is firm, at the bottom, and its counterpart above, the fourth line, is also yang, so nothing binds it. Zhu Xi reads it as meeting others at the gate before anyone has claimed it, and so free of blame. Union that begins without favorites starts on the right footing.
Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading
同人于宗，吝。
Joining with people within one's faction. Humiliation.
Zong, Zhu Xi says, means one's own faction. The second line is central and correct, yet its tie to the fifth line holds it to a single partner, so it cannot join widely and stays caught in a private loyalty. That narrowness is what the text calls humiliation. Virtue is not the problem here; the size of the circle is.
Line 3, yang (九三)changing line in the shared reading
伏戎于莽，升其高陵，三歲不興。
Hiding troops in the thicket, climbing the high hill. For three years it does not rise up.
Firm and off-center, the third line has no proper partner above and wants the second line for itself, though the two are not a proper pair. Fearing an attack from the fifth line, the second line's true partner, it hides soldiers in the brush and climbs a high hill to keep watch. Zhu Xi gives only the image, and the text adds that for three years it does not stir: a scheme that never gets off the ground.
Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading
乘其墉，弗克攻，吉。
It mounts the wall but does not carry out the attack. Good fortune.
The fourth line is also firm, off-center and without a partner, and it too wants the second line, but the third line stands in the way, so it climbs the wall to attack. Being in a soft place, Zhu Xi says, it reconsiders and holds back. He reads the good fortune as that of someone able to correct a mistake. Stopping on the wall is the turning point.
Line 5, yang (九五)changing line in the shared reading
同人先號咷而後笑，大師克相遇。
Joining with people: first loud weeping, then laughter. A great army prevails, and they meet.
The fifth and second lines answer each other, both central and correct; in Zhu Xi's words, they are of one heart. Yet the third and fourth lines stand between them, so at first they cannot come together, hence the wailing. What rightness joins, outside things cannot keep apart, so there is laughter in the end. Since the second line is weak and the lines in between are strong, a great army must break through before they meet.
Top line, yang (上九)changing line in the shared reading
同人于郊，无悔。
Joining with people in the outskirts. No regret.
Outermost and with no partner, the top line finds no one to join. Zhu Xi says it can still be without regret. He distinguishes the outskirts from the open country of the judgment: they lie inside it, not yet wide and far, merely remote and lonely. There is no great union here, but nothing to regret either.
If you drew this hexagram
Which text to read depends on how many lines are changing. With none, read the judgment; with one, read that line; with more, follow Zhu Xi's rules in the Yixue qimeng.
Text: Zhu Xi, Yuanben Zhouyi benyi (原本周易本義), Siku Quanshu Wenyuange copy, as transcribed by the Kanseki Repository (KR1a0031), corrected and punctuated by K-magpie. Translation and explanation: written by AI (Claude) from Zhu Xi's commentary and checked against the text and commentary. Sources and the list of corrections are on the Today's Hexagram page.