A lake collecting over the land: a hexagram of people and things coming together, where a gathering needs a worthy center, sincerity and correctness to hold.
Dui ☱, lake, joyful, sits above Kun ☷, earth, yielding: water collecting over the land. Zhu Xi glosses the name as gathering, built on compliance below, joy above, and a strong central ruler answered by the second line. He reads the judgment's temple visit as a sign for royal sacrifice, and stresses that a gathering needs the great person and must be a correct one.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
萃，亨。王假有廟，利見大人，亨，利貞。用大牲吉，利有攸往。
Cui: the king comes to his ancestral temple. It is favorable to see the great person; success. It is fitting to stay correct and firm. Offering great sacrificial animals brings good fortune. It is favorable to have somewhere to go.
Zhu Xi glosses the name as gathering: compliance below, joy above, a strong central fifth line answered by the second, and a lake collecting over the land. He regards the first 'success' (亨) as a stray character, so the translation leaves it out. The king's approach to the temple he reads as a favorable sign for royal sacrifice: the temple gathers the spirits of the ancestors, and one must gather one's own spirit to come before them. Once people gather, they need the great person, and the gathering must be correct. Great offerings, he adds, become possible only when much has been gathered, and so does going forward.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
澤上於地，萃。君子以除戎器，戒不虞。
The lake rises above the earth: Assembly. The noble person repairs and gathers his weapons, on guard against the unexpected.
Water collecting over the land is gathering at its plainest. Zhu Xi glosses 除 not as 'remove' but as repairing and gathering together. Where many people and things come together, the noble person keeps the means of defense in order, ready for what no one expects.
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
有孚不終，乃亂乃萃，若號，一握為笑，勿恤，往无咎。
There is sincerity, but it does not last to the end: confusion, then gathering. If it cries out, it is laughed at by the handful around it. Do not worry. Going forward, no blame.
The first line (初六) has a proper partner in the fourth, but two yin lines stand between them. In a time when everyone is gathering, it cannot hold steady: its good faith lapses, its purpose blurs, and it joins the wrong crowd. Calling out to its true partner would only draw laughter, Zhu Xi says. Yet if it ignores that and goes to the fourth line, it is free of blame.
Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading
引吉，无咎，孚乃利用禴。
Drawn along: good fortune, no blame. With sincerity, even the modest yue offering is favorable.
Surrounded by yin lines, the second line (六二) answers the strong fifth line but must be drawn out to join the gathering; drawn along, it finds good fortune. Zhu Xi notes that both partners are central and correct, the lower one open at the center, the upper one sincere and reaching down. With good faith like that, he says, even a modest offering is enough for the rite.
Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading
萃如嗟如，无攸利，往无咎，小吝。
Gathering, and sighing. Nothing is favorable. Going forward, no blame; slight humiliation.
Weak, off center and out of place, the third line (六三) has no true partner. It tries to gather with those nearby, fails, and sighs. Zhu Xi sees one way out, going up to the top line, though with a little shame: the move comes only after frustration, and the top is a weak line without office. Still, he advises passing over the strong but improper neighbor for a distant tie with one's corresponding partner, however hard-pressed.
Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading
大吉，无咎。
Great good fortune. No blame.
Between the ruler above and the yin lines below, the fourth line (九四) has gathered support on both sides. But it is a yang line in a yin place, not correct, and Zhu Xi reads the two phrases as a condition: only if the outcome is greatly good does it escape blame. Standing at the center of a gathering from a position that is not quite correct calls for unusual care.
Line 5, yang (九五)changing line in the shared reading
萃有位，无咎。匪孚，元永貞，悔亡。
Gathering, with a rightful position. No blame. If there is not yet trust, let virtue be great, lasting, correct and firm, and regret vanishes.
The fifth line (九五) is the ruler at the center of the gathering, strong, central and correct, and so clearly free of blame. Holding the seat is not the same as being trusted, though. If some do not yet believe in it, Zhu Xi says, the answer is to cultivate its own virtue: great in scope, lasting, and steadily correct. Then the regret falls away. Trust is earned from the seat, not conferred by it.
Top line, yin (上六)changing line in the shared reading
齎咨涕洟，无咎。
Sighs and moans, tears and a running nose. No blame.
At the end of the gathering, the top line (上六) is weak, without office, and left out. Zhu Xi reads the sighs and tears not as a sorry ending but as the condition for avoiding blame: someone in this place must feel the loss keenly. Grief honestly felt, instead of covered over, is what the text accepts.
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.