What Ti and Yong Mean in Mei Hua Yi Shu: Telling the Ti Trigram from the Yong Trigram
Someone sent me a hexagram and said, "the Yong controls the Ti — is that very bad?"
I asked one question: which one is the Ti?
He answered: the one that came out first, I suppose.
Wrong answer.
What Ti and Yong Are
Mei Hua Yi Shu reasons mainly from the inner and outer trigrams, the Ti and Yong trigrams, the nuclear and changed trigrams, and the line texts (Source 1). Ti and Yong are the most basic pair of coordinates within that.
The Ti trigram stands for the side of the person asking — "me", "us", "our side".
The Yong trigram stands for the side of the matter being asked about — the other party, the external conditions, the matter itself.
Once that pair of coordinates stands, generation and control among the five phases has a direction: Ti generating Yong, Yong generating Ti, Ti controlling Yong, Yong controlling Ti — four directions that describe four quite different situations.
Mix Up Ti and Yong and the Whole Hexagram Is Spoiled
Because the direction of generation and control will be reversed throughout.
Yong controlling Ti (the matter bearing down on the person) and Ti controlling Yong (the person pushing the matter along) are the same relation on the face of the hexagram, but two different situations in reality. Mixing up Ti and Yong is like fitting the steering wheel the wrong way round.
The mistakes I have seen are usually of two kinds: taking the trigram that appeared first as the Ti, and taking "the one I care about" as the Ti. What fixes Ti and Yong is neither the order nor which side you care about more, but which side you are asking about.
So it comes back to the same thing: write the question clearly before you cast, and Ti and Yong will be clear along with it.
Three Reminders for Reading Ti and Yong
One: Ti and Yong are not good and bad. Yong generating Ti is not necessarily a good thing; it may mean that the matter is pushing you forward and you have to catch it. Yong controlling Ti is not necessarily a bad thing either; more often it means resistance has appeared exactly where resistance belongs.
Two: look at the nuclear and changed trigrams. The complete reading of Mei Hua Yi Shu also takes in the nuclear and changed trigrams (Source 1); cutting out only the Ti and Yong trigrams is like reading only the opening.
Three: do not skip the line texts. Mei Hua Yi Shu still takes the hexagram and line texts of the I Ching as one of its bases (Source 2); the line texts are where this system connects to the ancient text.
A Cup Knocked Over by a Cat
The case I remember best was a small matter I looked at for a friend: she had just finished asking whether to resign, and a cup on the table had been knocked over by her cat. She noted it down as an external sign.
Ti and Yong fixed, Yong generating Ti. I did not tell her "you should resign" or "you should stay" — that is not a question the hexagram can answer. I said one thing only: this matter will push you to move, rather than you pushing it.
Three months later she resigned on her own. Speaking of that hexagram afterwards, what she remembered was not the conclusion but the phrase itself: "it will push you to move".
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This article was last checked on 19 September 2026. Traditional divination has many schools and a long history, and their formulas and versions do not fully agree; the text relies on publicly verifiable sources, and for dates and calendars please refer to the latest official publication.
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Sources
- "Yao" (《爻》) — Wikipedia (the section on Liu Yao, covering the basis of Mei Hua Yi Shu in the inner and outer trigrams, the Ti and Yong trigrams, the nuclear and changed trigrams and the line texts): https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/爻 (accessed 19 September 2026)
- "I Ching" (《易经》) — Wikipedia (the entry "Zhou Yi" redirects here): https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/易经 (accessed 19 September 2026)
- Method page on this site: Mei Hua Yi Shu (Plum Blossom Numerology): https://zhanbumizhi.top/en/methods/meihua (accessed 19 September 2026)