The Eight Trigrams Explained: Heaven, Earth, Fire, Water and More
The eight trigrams are the alphabet of the I Ching. All sixty-four hexagrams are built by stacking two of these three-line symbols. Learn the trigrams first, and reading hexagrams has a foundation.
What the trigrams are
Each trigram is three lines (yin or broken, yang or solid), giving eight in all, each tied to a force of nature. Stacking two trigrams forms a six-line hexagram, for 8 × 8 = 64 in total.
The eight at a glance
Each trigram carries a natural image and a quality:
- Qian ☰ Heaven — strength, initiative (see The Creative)
- Dui ☱ Lake — joy, exchange (see The Joyous)
- Li ☲ Fire — light, clarity (see The Clinging)
- Zhen ☳ Thunder — arousing, movement (see The Arousing)
- Xun ☴ Wind — gentle penetration (see The Gentle)
- Kan ☵ Water — danger, depth (see The Abysmal)
- Gen ☶ Mountain — stillness, stability (see Keeping Still)
- Kun ☷ Earth — yielding, receptivity (see The Receptive)
How to remember them
Learn them by their shapes: Heaven is three solid lines, Earth three broken; Fire is hollow in the middle, Water solid in the middle; Lake is broken on top, Wind broken at the bottom; Thunder opens upward, Mountain caps it off. Picture the figure and you recall the trigram.
How trigrams build hexagrams
Place one trigram on top (the upper) and another below (the lower) to form a six-line hexagram. For example, Water over Heaven is Waiting. To browse them all, see the complete list of 64 hexagrams.
FAQ
Earlier vs. later heaven arrangement?
The "earlier heaven" sequence (Fu Xi) maps opposites, while the "later heaven" sequence (King Wen) maps cyclical order. For reading hexagrams, the images and qualities of the trigrams matter most.
Do I have to memorize the trigrams?
It helps a great deal to know their shapes and natural images — it makes reading far faster.
How do trigrams relate to divination?
They are the building blocks: the six-line hexagram you cast is simply an upper and a lower trigram combined.