Hexagram for Treading

Keep your footing when the next move is risky. Hexagram 10 treats conduct as careful movement under pressure. Its tiger-tail image warns that even a small misstep can provoke trouble.

The Zhou Yi, an early Chinese classic used for divination, preserves the hexagrams as notation for reading change; its tradition is dated circa 1000 BCE. Each figure’s six lines form a pattern. Three-line groups called trigrams offer another framework later interpreters use to discuss it.

Why does hexagram 10 have different English names?

履 is the Chinese name, rendered in different ways in English. English editions use Treading, Conduct, or Stepping for the same hexagram. The names emphasize careful footing, behavior, or the act of stepping.

The six-line pattern carries the reading; the lines are not decoration. Trigrams and later commentaries offer different frameworks for interpreting the inherited pattern, so a translated title guides the reader without naming a different sign.