Yarrow 综卦 source note · 2026-07-17

Sui and Gu: What a Zong Gua Inverse Pair Shows

Compare Hexagram 17 Sui (Following) and Hexagram 18 Gu (Work on the Decayed) as a zong gua inverse pair: reversed line order changes viewing direction without forecasting a transition.

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17 · Sui · Following

Following. Supreme success. It furthers one to undertake great deeds. No blame. The Commentary on the Judgment says: In Following, the firm comes and places itself beneath the yielding. Movement and joy: thus Following. Great success through perseverance, without blame, and all under heaven follows the time. Great indeed is the meaning of following the time.

The reason Sui carries the meaning of "following" lies in its hexagram image of inner movement and outer joy. This image implicitly contains the act of "following," in which "the firm comes and places itself below the...

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18 · Gu · Work on the Decayed

GU signifies decay and its remedy: supreme success. It furthers one to cross the great water. Three days before the day jia, three days after the day jia. The Tuan says: In Gu the firm rises above and the yielding lies below; gentle and arrested—thus Gu. Decay corrected brings supreme success, and the world is set in order.

The Tuanzhuan states: "Gentle and stopping, this is Gu." Most scholars interpret this as "gentle and able to stop Gu," mistakenly reading it as if "gentle" could "stop Gu.

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What the 综卦 relation actually says

The local structured corpus records Hexagram 17's 综卦 (zong gua, inverse) as Hexagram 18, and Hexagram 18's inverse as Hexagram 17. In the corpus's stored six-line sequence, 110100 becomes 001011 when the order is reversed. Turning the figure end for end changes line positions while preserving each line's yin or yang polarity.

Reverse, compare, then test

Draw 110100 and 001011 in two columns, reverse the first sequence, and verify the match. Then copy one concrete phrase from the reference layer for Sui and one from Gu; name one observable condition supporting each lens, choose one reversible check, and write what evidence would make you review the choice.

Common misread to avoid

A zong gua pair is not a before-and-after promise. Sui does not automatically become Gu; reversed structure neither ranks the two figures nor says which one must follow.

Source boundary

The reference layers and the zong-gua relationship come from Yarrow's bundled structured Zhouyi corpus. The English wording is an editorial explanation of that stored relation. This note is not a fresh cast, a forecast, or a claim that one hexagram must turn into the other.