Water held within the earth: an army drawn from the people. The text ties good fortune to a correct cause, a seasoned leader, careful beginnings and fair rewards.
Water ☵, whose quality is peril, lies inside earth ☷, whose quality is yielding. Zhu Xi sees danger held within calm, as when soldiers in early times were lodged among the farmers. A single yang line leads five yin lines as a general leads troops, and the judgment links good fortune to a correct cause and a seasoned elder in charge.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
師，貞，丈人吉，无咎。
Shi. Correct and firm. With a seasoned elder in charge: good fortune, no blame.
Shi means a body of troops. Water below and earth above hide danger inside yielding; Zhu Xi recalls how, in early times, soldiers lived among the farmers, the utmost danger concealed within the deepest calm. The one yang line, central in the lower trigram, is the general; the five yin lines follow it as the troops; the soft fifth line above entrusts it with the task, as a ruler commissions a commander. Using troops calls for a correct cause and an experienced elder, and only then do good fortune and freedom from blame follow.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
地中有水，師。君子以容民畜衆。
Within the earth there is water: Shi. The noble person, accordingly, makes room for the people and nurtures the multitude.
Water is never outside the earth, Zhu Xi says, just as soldiers are never outside the population. Whoever can nourish the people can therefore win the many. The image grounds strength in care: the army is the people, held the way the ground holds water.
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
師出以律，否臧凶。
The troops set out under rules. Without good order: misfortune.
At the bottom line the army is just setting out. Lü means rules, and pi zang means not good; Zhu Xi cites a Master Chao, who notes that earlier scholars mostly wrote the first character as “not.” The way of the army is to take care at the start: marching under rules goes well, and marching without good order goes badly. He reads it as a caution to begin with care and keep to the rules.
Line 2, yang (九二)changing line in the shared reading
在師中，吉，无咎，王三錫命。
In the midst of the troops. Good fortune, no blame. The king confers his command three times.
The only yang line sits at the center of the army, and all the yin lines rally to it. It has firm and central virtue, and the fifth line above answers it with trust and favor. Zhu Xi's note stays with that picture: a commander among the ranks, backed by the ruler, which is why the text grants good fortune and repeated honors from the king.
Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading
師或輿尸，凶。
The troops may come back carting corpses. Misfortune.
Yu shi means a beaten army bringing its dead home in carts. Zhu Xi explains the line's makeup: yin in a yang place, weak in ability yet headstrong in intent, neither central nor correct, and reaching beyond its proper role. The picture shows what follows when ambition outruns capacity in a matter as grave as war.
Line 4, yin (六四)changing line in the shared reading
師左次，无咎。
The troops fall back and make camp. No blame.
Zuo ci means pulling back and setting up camp. The fourth line is soft and off-center, but it is yin in a yin place and so correct. Zhu Xi says that bringing the army back whole is far better than the third line's rout, which is why the text finds no blame. Withdrawal here counts as a sound choice, not a failure.
Line 5, yin (六五)changing line in the shared reading
田有禽，利執言，无咎。長子帥師，弟子輿尸，貞凶。
There is game in the field: it is favorable to catch it. No blame. The eldest son leads the troops; the younger sons cart home corpses. Correct and firm, yet misfortune.
The fifth line directs the army. Soft and central, it does not start wars; an enemy has come against it, and it answers only because it must. So the picture is game that has strayed into one's fields, and catching it is fitting and blameless. Yan, Zhu Xi notes, is only a particle. The eldest son is the second line, the younger sons the third and fourth: give a capable leader the command but let lesser people meddle, and even a just cause meets misfortune.
Top line, yin (上六)changing line in the shared reading
大君有命，開國承家，小人勿用。
The great ruler issues commands: founding states and continuing houses. Petty people must not be used.
The campaign has ended and yielding has reached its peak: Zhu Xi calls this the time to weigh merit and give rewards. Kun is soil, hence the grants of land that found states and carry on houses. Petty people, even with merit, should not receive rank and land; generous gifts of gold and silk are enough for them. A petty person who draws this line, he adds, cannot claim it.
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.