Yarrow 综卦 source note · 2026-07-17

Cui and Sheng: What a Zong Gua Inverse Pair Shows

Compare Hexagram 45 Cui (Gathering Together) and Hexagram 46 Sheng (Pushing Upward) as a zong gua inverse pair: reversed line order changes viewing direction without forecasting a transition.

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䷬

45 · Cui · Gathering Together

Cui signifies Gathering. The king approaches his ancestral temple to offer sacrifice to forebears, to heaven and earth. It is advantageous to see the great man; there will be progress and success through perseverance. The use of great victims brings good fortune; it is advantageous to undertake whither one would go.

Where there is a marsh there is water, where there is earth there are things; water moistens the earth and the myriad things are born, and once born they gather together—this is the fundamental image of the Cui hexagram.

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䷭

46 · Sheng · Pushing Upward

Ascending: Sublime success. It furthers one to see the great man. Fear not. Setting forth toward the bright South brings good fortune. The Tuan says: The yielding ascends in its due season. Gentle and devoted, the firm holds the center and finds response — thus great success. "It furthers one to see the great man, fear not" — there is cause for rejoicing.

"Entering" is the basic premise of the Sheng hexagram, and "compliance" is its favorable condition. To enter and be able to comply, and through compliance to be able to "ascend"—"entering" and "compliance" together...

Complete source entry

What the 综卦 relation actually says

The local structured corpus records Hexagram 45's 综卦 (zong gua, inverse) as Hexagram 46, and Hexagram 46's inverse as Hexagram 45. In the corpus's stored six-line sequence, 110000 becomes 000011 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 110000 and 000011 in two columns, reverse the first sequence, and verify the match. Then copy one concrete phrase from the reference layer for Cui and one from Sheng; 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. Cui does not automatically become Sheng; 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.