Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly
Meng · 蒙
The Judgment
The student seeks the teacher, not the other way around. Ask once and receive an answer. Ask repeatedly out of anxiety and you'll get nothing—that's not inquiry, it's neediness. Success comes through staying the course.
The Image
A spring emerges at the mountain's base—it doesn't know where it's going yet, just that it must flow. Fill each hollow completely before moving forward. Character develops the same way: thoroughness in small things before attempting large ones.
「山下出泉，蒙。」泉水從山腳湧出，還不知道自己要去哪裡，只知道要流。把每個低窪處填滿，才能繼續往前。人的性格好像也是這樣——小事做得徹底，大事才有根基。
The Six Lines
Discipline awakens the fool—but only enough to start. Remove the fetters once the lesson takes hold. Continuing to punish after understanding arrives creates resentment, not growth.
You can work with fools if you're patient. You can work with the inexperienced if you don't condescend. The capable child can run the household—competence isn't about age.
Don't pursue someone who abandons themselves at the sight of wealth or status. When a person loses their center that easily, nothing good can come from the connection.
Isolated in fantasy, cut off from reality—this is the most hopeless form of ignorance. The cure requires contact with the actual world, not more thinking.
Childlike openness brings good fortune. The key word is childlike, not childish. No arrogance, genuine curiosity, willingness to not-know. This is the right attitude.
Sometimes a fool must be stopped, not taught. But the punishment should prevent future harm, not avenge past wrongs. Defense, not attack.
Artwork & Treatise
The Astronomer
Vermeer
In Vermeer's studio, an astronomer leans forward over a celestial globe, his right hand suspended mid-gesture above its painted surface. Geometric instruments catch the window light behind him—an astrolabe hangs on the wall, a compass rests nearby, books lie open with star charts visible on their pages. The man wears a richly patterned robe; his face concentrates on the sphere that maps the heavens. He sits at the threshold of understanding, surrounded by the tools of his craft but not yet master of the knowledge they encode. The globe shows constellations; his hand hovers as if to grasp them, to make them yield their secrets.
This is Méng (蒙), which combines Mountain (☶) above and Water (☵) below. The character 蒙 depicts plants covering or obscuring vision, the state of not-yet-knowing. Water flows at the mountain's base, hidden from view—the dangerous unknown beneath the stable boundary. Vermeer painted this exact configuration: the scholar's stillness (mountain) confronting the vast mystery of celestial mechanics (water in its depths). In divination practice, this hexagram appeared when someone stood before a master craft, when genuine questions formed but answers remained obscured.
{artwork_reasoning}
The Judgment speaks directly to Vermeer's scene: "Youthful folly has success. It is not I who seek the young fool; the young fool seeks me." The astronomer has positioned himself before the celestial sphere. He has gathered his instruments, opened his books. The teacher—whether human master or cosmic order—will not chase the student. Ancient texts warn against repeated shallow questioning: "If he asks two or three times, it is importunity." Genuine learning requires patient absorption, the willingness to sit with confusion as the astronomer sits with his globe's mysteries. The Image Text offers unexpected counsel about how learning actually occurs: "A spring wells up at the foot of the mountain: the image of youth. Thus the superior man fosters his character by thoroughness." Water gradually shaping stone, insight accumulating through sustained attention rather than forced revelation. In the I-Ching's sequence, Méng follows Zhūn: after the chaotic breakthrough comes the recognition of inexperience, the moment when one realizes how much remains unknown and positions oneself to learn.
Yilin Verse
何草不黃，至未盡玄。室家分離，悲愁於心。
Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — Unchanging verse for 蒙 (Méng)
Character-by-Character Breakdown
Classical Chinese text with pinyin and English meanings