The Book of Changes · Qian

Hexagram 15: Modesty

Earth (the field) over Mountain (the peak)

The only hexagram where every line is favourable, which the tradition treats as a statement about the quality rather than a promise about outcomes. A mountain inside the earth: height that does not need to be seen.

The image

Mountain under the earth. The reading is that a person reduces what is too much and adds to what is too little, so that things come out level.

Earth, above

Yielding, carrying, and what receives without insisting.

Mountain, below

Stillness, limit, and the place where a thing stops.

The six lines

Read from the bottom up.

1. Line 1Modest about being modest. A real crossing is open.
2. Line 2Modesty that shows. Constancy is what makes this work.
3. Line 3Working and modest. Carries things to the end.
4. Line 4Nothing here works against you. Modesty in action.
5. Line 5No boasting of wealth. Use force only where it is warranted.
6. Line 6Modesty that speaks. Set your own house in order first.

The same figure in Human Design

Human Design took its sixty four gates from this book, in this numbering, so hexagram 15 is Gate 15, Extremes.