Also known as Duration, Perseverance, Constancy.
The character 恆 means constant or enduring. Hexagram 32 follows the attraction of hexagram 31 with what makes it last: commitment kept over time. Lasting isn't standing still. It is staying true to a direction while everything around you moves.
The figure
Thunder over Wind. Thunder and wind always arrive together, the way a long partnership repeats its patterns. Here the strong trigram sits above and the gentle one below, the settled order of things that endure.
The judgment
It goes through. Nothing goes wrong. It pays to hold, and it pays to set out.
Duration succeeds, and it isn't passive. Staying steady and moving forward belong to the same thing, like the seasons repeating.
The image
Thunder and wind, the same pair arriving together every time. Take your position and stop moving it.
Find where you stand, then stand there. Change your methods if you need to, but not your direction.
The six lines
Counted from the bottom, the way the figure is built when you cast it.
- Line 1, at the bottom. Wanting permanence too fast. Holding to that goes badly, and nothing helps. Lasting things take time.
- Line 2. Regret goes away. You keep to the middle and stay within your strength.
- Line 3. Not holding steady in your character. Shame follows. Constant wavering wears away trust.
- Line 4. No game in the field. Persisting in the wrong place gets you nothing, however steady you are.
- Line 5. Steady in following. The old text calls this good for a wife and bad for a husband, in its era's terms: constancy in following suits a supporting role, but a leader must adapt to what the moment needs.
- Line 6, at the top. Restlessness as a permanent state. It goes badly. Constant agitation is the opposite of lasting.
Reading it for a question
Hexagram 32 says stay the course. Commit for the long term, keep your direction and let your methods adapt. Don't rush permanence and don't keep pulling things up to check the roots.