Thunder and wind moving together: a hexagram of lasting. Holding to one's way brings success, but only constancy in what is correct keeps the road open.
Xun ☴, wind, whose quality is entering (入), lies beneath Zhen ☳, thunder, whose quality is movement (動). Zhu Xi reads heng as lasting long: the firm above and the soft below, thunder and wind acting together, compliance joined to motion, and each line answered by its opposite all show the steady pattern of things. Persistence brings success, provided it keeps to what is correct.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
恆，亨，无咎，利貞，利有攸往。
Heng: success, and no blame. It is fitting to stay correct and firm. It is favorable to have somewhere to go.
Heng means lasting, as Zhu Xi glosses it. He finds four things in the figure that show the ordinary, constant pattern of things: the firm trigram above and the soft below, thunder and wind working together, gentle compliance joined to movement, and every line paired with a partner of the opposite kind. Lasting in one's way brings success without blame. Yet only when that persistence keeps to what is correct is it the right kind of constancy, and then going forward is favorable.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
雷風，恆。君子以立不易方。
Thunder and wind: Heng. The noble person takes a position and does not alter course.
Zhu Xi adds no note here. Thunder and wind are always on the move, yet together they make the image of constancy, and the noble person's response is to take a position and hold one course. The constancy lies in the direction held, not in standing still.
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, yin (初六)changing line in the shared reading
浚恆，貞凶，无攸利。
Seeking constancy by digging deep. Even if correct and firm, misfortune. Nothing is favorable.
The first and fourth lines are partners, and normally that bond holds. But the first line (初六) has only just begun, while the fourth, a yang line in the moving trigram, leans upward and is cut off by the two lines between. Soft and unable to read the situation, and bent on going deep as master of the entering trigram, the first presses the ordinary rule too far, too early. Even if correct, that brings misfortune.
Line 2, yang (九二)changing line in the shared reading
悔亡。
Regret vanishes.
A strong line in a soft place would normally bring regret. Zhu Xi explains why it does not here: the second line (九二) stays in the center and keeps to it over time, and that lasting balance makes the regret disappear. In this hexagram, holding the middle is itself a form of constancy.
Line 3, yang (九三)changing line in the shared reading
不恆其德，或承之羞，貞吝。
Not constant in its virtue, it may be handed shame by someone or other. Correct, yet humiliation.
The third line (九三) stands in a correct place, but it is too hard and off center, its mind drawn toward the top line, so it cannot stay put for long: virtue not kept constant. Zhu Xi reads 或 as “someone, no one knows who” and 承 as “to present”: shame is handed to it from a source it cannot trace. Being correct without being constant, he says, is itself cause for humiliation.
Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading
田无禽。
In the hunt there is no game.
Strong but placed in a soft position, the fourth line (九四) has stayed a long time where it does not belong. Persisting in the wrong place is a kind of constancy too, and Zhu Xi's image for it is a hunt that turns up no game: whatever is sought there is not found. Lasting is worth something only in the right place.
Line 5, yin (六五)changing line in the shared reading
恆其德，貞，婦人吉，夫子凶。
Keeping its virtue constant, correct and firm. For a wife, good fortune; for a husband, misfortune.
Soft and central, the fifth line (六五) answers the strong central line below and holds to it without change, which is constancy and correctness both. But Zhu Xi notes that in the text's household terms this steady following is the way of a wife, not what suits a husband, so the same constancy is judged good for one and bad for the other. Constancy is weighed against the role it serves.
Top line, yin (上六)changing line in the shared reading
振恆，凶。
Constant agitation. Misfortune.
Zhu Xi glosses 振 as rapid movement. At the top of the hexagram constancy has gone so far that it no longer holds, and at the end of the thunder trigram movement has gone too far. A soft line cannot keep firm, and the top is no place for it to settle. What remains is restless motion taken for a way of life, and the text calls it misfortune.
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: 恆亨尤咎 → 恆亨无咎 · 怕 → 恆 (transcription)