The Corners of the Mouth
Judgment
— I Ching · classical
贞吉。观颐，自求口实。
Holding to what is right brings good fortune. Watch closely how nourishment is provided, and how each person goes about earning their own sustenance.
Image
— Great Image
山下有雷，颐，君子以慎言语，节饮食。
Thunder stirs at the foot of the mountain: this is Nourishment. Watching it, a person of real character weighs their words carefully and keeps their eating and drinking in moderation.
Six Lines
— Bottom to top
Modern Readings
— Interdisciplinary
Career & Management
Compensation design, wellness industry, restructuring of core business. Audit the corporate 'metabolism' — what does the firm consume, what does it produce?
Psychology & Cognition
'Disease enters through the mouth, disaster issues from the mouth.' Manage information intake strictly (no junk media); manage financial outflow; tend body and emotion.
Decision Guidance
Watch what you swallow — informationally, financially, socially. Do not abandon your own treasures to envy others' bubbles.
Integrated Reading
— Structure · timing · relations
The Corners of the Mouth places Keeping Still / Mountain above The Arousing / Thunder. Read the lower trigram as the emerging ground and the upper trigram as the field, pressure, or constraint it must answer. The core theme is Nourishment · Input-output management · What you consume. Relations: the opposite hexagram shows the shadow/complement (Preponderance of the Great); the inverse shows the other-side view (The Corners of the Mouth); the nuclear hexagram shows the hidden internal mechanism (The Receptive).
Line Path
Line path: Initial Nine → Six in the second → Six in the third → Six in the fourth → Six in the fifth → Nine at the top. Read from bottom to top to see how the situation emerges, develops, crosses thresholds, and resolves.
Reflection Prompt
Am I acting from the proper position of The Corners of the Mouth, or am I being pulled by nourishing with impure speech or inputs? What is the smallest reversible next move that respects the timing?
Western Parallels
— Cross-cultural
Cal Newport's 'digital minimalism' (information diet); the Stoic discipline of attention (what you allow to enter your mind shapes your soul); Jim Rohn's 'you are the average of the five people you spend most time with'; nutritional biology applied to the mind.
· English renderings and modern readings are original editorial writing, cross-checked against public-domain and classical commentary lineages.
· Hexagram Cast does not predict, score, schedule, ward, or recommend rituals.
· Modern inputs are reproducible; traditional casts can be audited line by line from the stored coin/yarrow trace.