Overview
Nourishment — 山雷颐 (Yi) — sustenance.
The Hexagram
- Upper Trigram: Gen Mountain
- Lower Trigram: Zhen Thunder
- Chinese Name: 山雷颐 (Yi)
- English Name: Nourishment
- Key Meanings: Sustenance. Thunder under mountain — what you feed your body and mind.
The Judgment (Guà Cí)
Nourishment. Perseverance brings good fortune. Pay heed to the providing of nourishment.
The Image (Xiàng Cí)
At the foot of the mountain, thunder: the image of Nourishment. Thus the superior man is careful of his words and temperate in eating and drinking.
Symbolism Deep Dive
Mountain over Thunder. Mountain (Gen, stillness, the jaw) above; Thunder (Zhen, movement, the act of biting) below. The hexagram visually resembles an open mouth — the mountain as upper jaw, thunder as lower jaw. Nourishment is literally about what enters the mouth, but symbolically about everything we consume: food, information, relationships, media. The Image is direct: careful words (what comes out) and temperate consumption (what goes in). Both directions matter equally.
Modern Application
Yi addresses the quality, not just the quantity, of what we consume. In an age of information overload, the hexagram asks: what are you feeding your mind? Endless scrolling? Outrage-driven news? Or substantive knowledge and genuine connection? The practical discipline: audit your information diet as carefully as your food diet. The hexagram also addresses how we nourish others — are you feeding dependency or capability? The parent, the manager, the teacher all face this question. Good nourishment builds strength; bad nourishment creates dependency.
Key Themes
- Each theme here extracted from the hexagram’s core teaching
“The I Ching Decoded” video series — Day 31.