The Corners of the Mouth takes the mouth as its image — an opening at the top, stillness below, and movement at the jaw. It is about nourishment in every sense: what you take in, what you give, and what you say.
The structure: Mountain over Thunder
Thunder below, mountain above. Movement underneath and stillness above, which is the shape of eating: the jaw moves, the head does not.
The Judgment
The Corners of the Mouth. Perseverance brings good fortune. Pay heed to the providing of nourishment and to what a man seeks to fill his own mouth with.
The judgment turns immediately to scrutiny of intake. The question is not whether you are nourished but what you are taking in — an instruction that covers food, words and influence alike.
The Image
At the foot of the mountain, thunder: the image of Providing Nourishment. Thus the superior man is careful of his words and temperate in eating and drinking.
Two disciplines, both about the mouth. What comes out and what goes in.
The lines
- Line 1 — You let your magic tortoise go, and look at me with the corners of your mouth drooping. Misfortune.
- Line 2 — Turning to the summit for nourishment, one deviates from the path. Misfortune.
- Line 3 — Turning away from nourishment. Perseverance brings misfortune. For ten years nothing serves to further.
- Line 4 — Turning to the summit for nourishment brings good fortune. Spying about like a tiger with insatiable craving. No blame.
- Line 5 — Turning away from the path. To remain persevering brings good fortune. One should not cross the great water.
- Line 6 — The source of nourishment. Awareness of danger brings good fortune. It furthers one to cross the great water.
The pattern is that seeking nourishment upward is usually wrong — lines 2 and 4 make the point twice, with opposite results depending on motive. Line 6 is the one place where being the source of nourishment works.
In practice
Read the hexagram as a question about input. What are you taking in, and is it nourishing? The answer is rarely about quantity.
The Image and the two disciplines
Care with words and temperance in eating and drinking. The pairing looks arbitrary until you notice both are about an opening you control: what you admit and what you emit.
That is the hexagram's practical core. It is not asking whether you are nourished but whether you are governing the intake.
Line 1 captures the failure precisely: the tortoise was a self-sufficient source of nourishment, and it was let go in favour of watching someone else eat.