Yi Jing · Chinese tarot
Inner Truth
Hexagram 61 of the Yi Jing · 中孚 Zhōng Fú
The figure
Wind above the Lake: the breath rippling the water from within, what touches the deepest part. The image of inner truth, of the heart that resonates.
What this figure illuminates
Inner Truth lights up the strength of sincerity: what comes from an upright heart moves people, where calculation fails. You truly influence by what you are, not by what you display.
For a decision, the figure questions your inner rightness: “is what I'm about to do true for me, or am I playing a role that will ring false?”.
The classical text
The Judgment
Inner truth reaches even to pigs and fishes — the least receptive of hearts — and brings good fortune. It furthers to cross the great stream, and to be firm and correct.
The Image
Wind moves over the lake, stirring it to its depths. Seeing this, the noble person weighs judgments with care and is slow to condemn to death.
The Six Lines
- First line
At peace within yourself, needing nothing outside for anchorage. Good fortune. Seek that ground elsewhere and you will find no rest.
- Second line
A crane calls from the shade, and its young answer unseen. Where the heart is true, it is felt at a distance and answered — like a cup gladly shared.
- Third line
You have found your counterpart, but your heart hangs on them entirely — now drumming, now silent, now weeping, now singing. A truth that depends wholly on another has no rest of its own.
- Fourth line
Like the moon almost full, and a horse that leaves its team to follow the true lead. Turn from your peers toward what is higher — no error.
- Fifth line
A sincerity so whole it binds others to you in unbreakable union. No error.
- Sixth line
Like the cock's crow straining to climb to heaven — fine words reaching past what they can bear out. Even held correct, this cannot last: misfortune.
Daoa's wording, written after the classical reference translations, now in the public domain: James Legge (1882) and Charles de Harlez (1889).
A question to keep
Is what you're about to do true for you?
Draw this figure for your question
Ask your question and do a free I Ching reading online, then receive a reading tied to your situation.
To go further, Daoa is also an iPhone, iPad & Android app.
Download on the App StoreDownload on Google PlayOr do a free Chinese tarot reading online →This figure, facing a choice
- The fear of being wrongWhen the fear of choosing wrong paralyses more than the choice itself.
- Listening to your intuition to decideIntuition or fear in disguise? Learning to tell apart — and listen to — your inner voice.
- Having a child, or notA child, or not: the one decision with no trial version — how to think it through without self-deception.
Writing with this figure
- An introspective journalWriting to know yourself — without looping or self-judging.
- Prompts to feed your journalWhat to write? Good questions beat an empty page.
- Guided journaling, differentlyGuided journaling without generic lists: a figure opens each page.
- Shadow work with the I ChingWhy the 64 figures are a natural shadow-work support — the pivot page between the two worlds.
- Prompts for shadow workWriting prompts for the shadow — and why a figure opens more than a frontal question.