Thunder moving beneath heaven: a hexagram of what is genuine and unforced. Things go through greatly, but whatever departs from correctness meets calamity.
Zhen ☳, thunder, whose quality is movement (動), lies beneath Qian ☰, heaven, whose quality is strength (健). Zhu Xi reads wu wang as what is real and true following its own nature: movement with nothing false in it, carried by heaven's strength. Things go through greatly, yet the judgment keeps one condition, that without correctness there is calamity.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
无妄，元亨，利貞。其匪正有眚，不利有攸往。
Wu Wang: great success. It is fitting to stay correct and firm. If one is not correct, there is calamity, and it is not favorable to have somewhere to go.
Wu wang, in Zhu Xi's words, is what is real and true following its own nature. He notes that the Shiji writes the name as “without expectation,” gaining something one did not look for, and says that sense also works. In the line change he traces from Hexagram 6, Song, a firm line comes down to the bottom and becomes the master of thunder: movement with nothing false in it. Thunder moves and heaven is strong, and the central fifth line answers the second, so things go through greatly. The condition is correctness; without it come calamity and nowhere worth going.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
天下雷行，物與无妄。先王以茂對時育萬物。
Thunder moves beneath heaven, and each thing is given its genuine nature: Wu Wang. The former kings, answering each season in full measure, nurtured the myriad things.
When thunder moves across the world below heaven, things stir and sprout, each settling into its own nature. Zhu Xi describes this as every thing being given its share of genuineness. The former kings followed that model: they met each season as it came and nurtured things according to what each was, without bending them to private aims.
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
无妄，往吉。
Without falsehood. Going forward brings good fortune.
A firm line at the base of the inner trigram, the first line (初九) is what Zhu Xi calls the master of sincerity. When action comes from that kind of genuineness, he says, the good result of going forward needs no further explanation. This is the hexagram's theme in its simplest form.
Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading
不耕穫，不菑畬，則利有攸往。
Not plowing for the sake of the harvest, not clearing new ground for the sake of a ripened field. Then it is favorable to have somewhere to go.
Soft, central and correct, the second line (六二) follows the time and the grain of things with no private hopes attached. Zhu Xi reads the farming image accordingly: one works the field without plowing for the harvest, without clearing new land with the finished field already in view. Nothing is done for a result, and nothing is counted on afterward. In that spirit, the text says, going forward is favorable.
Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading
无妄之災，或繫之牛，行人之得，邑人之災。
A calamity that comes without cause. Someone has tethered an ox; the passerby takes it, and the calamity falls on the townspeople.
Every line in this hexagram is without falsehood, Zhu Xi says, yet the third line (六三) does not stand in a correct place, so trouble arrives with no fault behind it. His picture: a traveler leads off an ox someone had tethered, and those who live there are left to face questioning and arrest. Some troubles say nothing about one's own conduct, and the text names this as one of them.
Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading
可貞，无咎。
It can hold firm. No blame.
Strong, and part of heaven's trigram, the fourth line (九四) has no partner below to answer it. Zhu Xi reads the line as saying one can hold firmly to one's place and so stay free of blame, and adds that it is not a prognosis for undertaking anything. Keeping steady is the whole of what it offers.
Line 5, yang (九五)changing line in the shared reading
无妄之疾，勿藥有喜。
An illness that comes without falsehood. Without medicine, there will be joy.
Firm, central and correct in the ruler's seat, and answered by a line below that is also central and correct, the fifth line (九五) is genuineness at its height. Zhu Xi reads the illness as something that befalls one through no falseness, and so passes of itself without a remedy. The picture is of a disturbance with no root in wrongdoing, one that clears without being forced.
Top line, yang (上九)changing line in the shared reading
无妄，行有眚，无攸利。
Without falsehood, yet acting brings calamity. Nothing is favorable.
Nothing false is found in the top line (上九) either. Zhu Xi's point is that it stands at the far end, where the time has run out, so acting from here brings calamity and nothing favorable. Being genuine does not make every moment right for moving; the line separates good intent from good timing.
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.
Characters corrected in this hexagram — judgment: 其匪止有眚 → 其匪正有眚