I Ching Divination Basics: Foundations Part 2.2 Five Elements (Wu Xing) and the Peer Harmony

👤 By Fiona

📅 November 28, 2025

⏱️ 4 min read

📂 Uncategorized

Six Lines Divination (Liu Yao, Wen Wang Gua) foundations, focusing on Earthly Branch peer harmony, Merge, Coincide and Align, and seasonal strength of the Five Elements.

I. Foundations

Part 2: Five Elements

2.2 In 2.1 we looked at the basic generation and overcoming cycle of the Five Elements. All three are core tools in I Ching (Liu Yao, Wen Wang Gua) divination.

2.2 Peer Harmony of the Five Elements

Peer harmony means two of the same element meeting.

In simple terms, two identical elements together form a peer relationship.
In I Ching divination and other Five Elements systems, this peer relationship often represents:

Siblings, colleagues, peers and friends
People in the same profession or on the same “side”
Partners who share similar roles or resources
Competition between equals, including “robbing wealth” when peers fight over the same pie

Sometimes two woods combine and support each other, like teammates working together. Other times they pull from the same limited resource, like two business partners splitting one profit source. The story of the question and the positions in the hexagram will show you which way it goes.

2.2.1 Earthly Branch peer harmony in Six Lines Divination

In Six Lines (Liu Yao) divination we often talk about peer harmony between Earthly Branches.
Using the branch codes in this series, some common peer harmonies look like this:

Diagram of the generation and overcoming of the Five Elements, together with the Eight Trigrams, the Six Gods, directions, seasons, Heavenly Stems, and Earthly Branches by ©️I Ching Stream

In readings this can show:

Extra support from people like you, same profession or same camp
Competition from colleagues or rivals chasing the same opportunity
A feeling of this is my crowd or this is my opponent at my own level

From here we can extend a key concept in Six Lines analysis: Merge.

Merge refers to the situation in which the element of the line in the hexagram is the same as the element of the monthly or daily branch.

This is peer harmony between the hexagram and the calendar.

Merge can be divided into Coincide and Align.

Coincide (值, zhi)
Coincide refers to the situation where the branch of the line in the hexagram is the same character as the monthly or daily branch.
The same applies to the day.
Align (临, lin)
Align is relative to coincide. It refers to the situation where the element of the line in the hexagram has the same Five Elements as the monthly or daily branch but with a different character.

The strength of coincidence and alignment differs.

In practice, this gives you a concrete rule for Six Lines divination:

A line that merges with the month or day is backed by time
Coincide is the strongest form of this backing
Align is also support, but slightly weaker

I. Foundations

Part 2: Five Elements

2.2.1 Earthly Branch peer harmony in Six Lines Divination

Further reading: English Editions of I Ching Divination Classics