Hexagram 61: Inner Truth
中孚Zhōng Fú
Sincere enough to reach anyone.
The passages below are historical language. Their references to fortune, danger, and the exemplary person belong to the text’s world. Our modern explanation is an invitation to reflect on your situation.
The Judgment
Classical Chinese
中孚。 豚魚，吉。利涉大川，利貞。
Our English rendering
Inner Truth. Pigs and fish: auspicious. It is favorable to cross the great river. It is favorable to remain steadfast.
The Image
Classical Chinese
象曰：澤上有風，中孚。君子以議獄緩死。
Our English rendering
Wind is above the lake: Inner Truth. A person of integrity reviews legal cases and delays executions.
Translation note: The terse phrase 'pigs and fish' leaves their role unstated, so the translation keeps that ambiguity. The Image explicitly names the postponement of executions; this severe historical detail is retained.
A modern reading
Wind above a lake makes an unseen movement visible in the water's response. Inner Truth invites attention to how an inward intention becomes perceptible through its effects. The Judgment's brief mention of pigs and fish leaves a plain, puzzling image beside the great river crossing. A modern reflection can ask how sincerity reaches beyond your own account of it: what another person can observe, and whether your actions give them a reason to trust you.
The Image brings inner truth into the serious work of reviewing cases and delaying executions. Confidence in a judgment is tested by the willingness to examine it before an irreversible consequence follows. In ordinary decisions, sincerity can include listening to facts or experiences that disturb your first conclusion. Allowing time for that review may expose something you had missed. The image places trust beside careful consideration of the person who will bear the result.
A question to sit with
What evidence or perspective should you hear before a decision becomes difficult to reverse?
Source and method
The Judgment and Image are classical passages from the Book of Changes. The English rendering and modern explanation are Meow Ching’s editorial work. This page covers these two passages; it does not translate the six individual line texts.
Read the classical text on Wikisource · Our sources and method