Hexagram 51 · Zhèn 震 Thunder (Shaking)

震，亨。震來虩虩，笑言啞啞。震驚百里，不喪匕鬯。

Zhen: success. When the shock comes, there are fearful, startled glances; then laughter and talk ring out. The shock alarms all within a hundred li, yet neither the ladle nor the sacrificial wine is lost.

Zhu Xi glosses 虩虩 as the look of someone afraid, glancing around in alarm. The hundred li describe the reach of the thunder. The ladle lifts food out of the cauldron, and the fragrant millet wine is poured on the ground to call down the spirits; keeping hold of them refers to the eldest son, who presides over these rites. His reading of the whole: one who can feel fear brings blessing and does not lose the weighty charge that is one's own. The point is less the fright than what one keeps hold of during it.

洊雷，震。君子以恐懼修省。

Thunder upon thunder: Zhen. The noble person, accordingly, in fear and caution, cultivates and examines the self.

Zhu Xi adds no note to this sentence. The doubled trigram gives thunder that comes again and again, and the noble person turns that alarm inward, into self-cultivation and self-examination. The same phrase returns in his note on the top line, where it is what keeps one free of blame.

Line 1, yang (初九)changing line in the shared reading

震來虩虩，後笑言啞啞，吉。

When the shock comes, there are fearful, startled glances. Afterward, laughter and talk ring out. Good fortune.

The first line (初九) is the yang line that makes the trigram what it is, and it stands at the very start of the shaking; Zhu Xi gives only this as the reason for its words. They repeat the judgment's, with “afterward” added to set the order: fright first, then ease. Fear met at the outset need not be the last word.

Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading

震來厲，億喪貝，躋于九陵，勿逐，七日得。

The shock comes: danger. Cowries are lost, and one climbs the ninefold hills. Do not chase after them; in seven days they are regained.

Riding on the firm first line, the source of the shaking, the second line meets the shock with danger, loses its goods and climbs to high ground. Yet it is yielding, central and correct, able to keep itself, so what was lost returns unsought. Zhu Xi admits that the word 億 here is unclear, so it is left untranslated, and that the images of the nine hills and seven days are unclear too.

Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading

震蘇蘇，震行无眚。

Shaking leaves one slack and dazed. If the shaking moves one to act, there is no calamity.

蘇蘇, in Zhu Xi's gloss, is a slack, scattered state in which one loses oneself. A yin line in a yang place is out of its proper position during the shaking, hence the daze. If fear moves one to act and leave behind what is not right, there is no calamity. Alarm can be the very thing that gets one out of a wrong place.

Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading

震遂泥。

Shaking, it sinks into the mire and does not come back.

Firm in a soft place, neither central nor correct, the fourth line is sunk among the yin lines around it and cannot rouse itself. Zhu Xi glosses 遂 as going on without return and 泥 as being stuck and mired. The text attaches no verdict; the picture is enough. Unlike the first line, which makes the thunder, this one cannot shake itself free.

Line 5, yin (六五)changing line in the shared reading

震往來厲，億无喪有事。

Shocks go and come: danger. Nothing is lost, and the work can be carried on.

A yin line in the fifth place during a time of shaking: there is no moment without danger, Zhu Xi says, as the shocks come and go. Because it holds the center, it loses nothing and can still carry on its affairs. His condition is plain: one who does not lose the center suffers no loss, even in danger. The word 億, which he called unclear in the second line, is again left untranslated.

Top line, yin (上六)changing line in the shared reading

震索索，視矍矍，征凶。震不于其躬，于其鄰，无咎。婚媾有言。

Shaking: shrunken and trembling, eyes darting in alarm. Going forward brings misfortune. If the shaking has reached not one's own person but one's neighbor, no blame. Still, those joined by marriage will have words.

A weak yin line at the far end of the shaking gives the picture of someone shrunken and wild-eyed with fright; to press on in that state can only end badly. Yet if one takes fright and looks within while the shock has struck the neighbor and not yet oneself, there is no blame, though some talk from in-laws cannot be avoided. Zhu Xi's words here, fear, cultivation and self-examination, come from the image sentence.