# Hexagram 58: The Joyous

Canonical page: https://thefreeiching.com/library/58
Last updated: 2026-10-07

```
━━━  ━━━
━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━
━━━  ━━━
━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━
```

- **Upper trigram:** [Dui 兌](https://thefreeiching.com/trigrams/dui), Lake, the joyous, open
- **Lower trigram:** [Dui 兌](https://thefreeiching.com/trigrams/dui), Lake, the joyous, open
- **Lines, bottom to top:** 110110 (1 = solid yang, 0 = broken yin)

## Contemporary judgment

Joy: genuine and shared. The kind of joy that arises naturally when people meet in openness and truth. Express it; multiply it by sharing it. But keep the joy true; joy manufactured for effect is the opposite of this hexagram's blessing.

## Image

Lakes resting upon each other. The superior person joins with friends for conversation and practice.

## Counsel

Spend time with people who nourish you, and in whose company you nourish them. Do not perform cheerfulness you do not feel; but do not refuse the real delight of being with others either. The joy that arises from honest contact with life is itself a kind of medicine.

## The six lines

*Numbered from the bottom upward. These line texts are read when that line is changing in a cast.*

### Line 1

> A nine at the beginning means:
> Contented joy. Good fortune!

### Line 2

> A nine in the second place means:
> Sincere joy. Good fortune! Remorse vanishes.

### Line 3

> A six in the third place means:
> Coming joy. Misfortune!

### Line 4

> A nine in the fourth place means:
> Deliberated joy is not at rest.
> After laying off the faults, one has joy.

### Line 5

> A nine in the fifth place means:
> Truthfulness toward the disintegrating is dangerous.

### Line 6

> A six at the top means:
> Seductive joy.

## Related hexagrams

- **Nuclear (lines 2 to 5):** [37 The Family](https://thefreeiching.com/library/37)
- **Inverse (turned upside down):** [57 The Gentle](https://thefreeiching.com/library/57)
- **Opposite (every line flipped):** [52 Keeping Still](https://thefreeiching.com/library/52)

## If one line changes

| Changing line | Relating hexagram |
| --- | --- |
| Line 1 | [47 Oppression](https://thefreeiching.com/library/47) |
| Line 2 | [17 Following](https://thefreeiching.com/library/17) |
| Line 3 | [43 Breakthrough](https://thefreeiching.com/library/43) |
| Line 4 | [60 Limitation](https://thefreeiching.com/library/60) |
| Line 5 | [54 The Marrying Maiden](https://thefreeiching.com/library/54) |
| Line 6 | [10 Treading](https://thefreeiching.com/library/10) |

Previous: [57 The Gentle](https://thefreeiching.com/library/57). Next: [59 Dispersion](https://thefreeiching.com/library/59). [All sixty-four hexagrams](https://thefreeiching.com/library).

*The judgment, image and counsel are original contemporary paraphrases written for The Free I Ching. The line text is the CC0 translation from [jesshewitt/i-ching](https://github.com/jesshewitt/i-ching), derived from Richard Wilhelm's 1924 German edition.*

## Cite this page

The Free I Ching. "Hexagram 58: The Joyous." https://thefreeiching.com/library/58 (updated 2026-10-07).

*The I Ching is a tool for reflection, not a prediction. Nothing here forecasts events or replaces professional advice. Short quotations with a link back are welcome. Please do not republish a page in full. The open data files at [/data](https://thefreeiching.com/data) are licensed CC BY 4.0.*

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Source: The Free I Ching (https://thefreeiching.com/library/58). The I Ching is a tool for reflection, not a prediction. Nothing here forecasts events or replaces professional advice.
