How to Write 艮 (gěn) — Meaning “Gen (one of the Eight Trigrams) / Blunt”

Imagine a person standing still with a straight back — the top horizontal line is the shoulders, the vertical line is the spine, and the bottom hook is their feet planted firmly on the ground. This posture of stillness matches the meanings of 'stop' and 'blunt' (rigid). The small stroke on the right can be seen as a tiny heel raised slightly, showing hesitation before moving.

Write the top horizontal stroke left to right, then the vertical stroke down from the left of that horizontal, followed by the horizontal stroke across the middle, then the left-falling stroke from the top horizontal to the bottom left, and finally the upward hook stroke (提) at the bottom right — total 6 strokes. A common mistake is making the final hook too long or curving it like a full right-falling stroke — it should be a short upward flick to the right.

良 (liáng, 'good') has an extra downward stroke on the left and a dot on top, making it look like 艮 with a hat and a longer left side — 良 is much more common and means 'good'. 艰 (jiān, 'difficult') is more complex, with 艮 inside on the right and a left component meaning 'many' — it means 'hard, arduous' whereas 艮 alone means 'blunt' or the trigram.

艮 is rarely used alone in daily conversation; its main modern use is in the term 艮卦 (gěn guà) from the Yijing (Book of Changes), where it represents the 52nd hexagram symbolizing stillness and mountains. It can also appear in some dialects as an adjective meaning 'blunt' or 'straightforward' in personality, but this is not standard Mandarin. Culturally, 艮 connects to Chinese philosophy as one of the eight trigrams representing the mountain element.

Common words containing 艮 include: 艮卦 (gěn guà) — The Gen Trigram; 艮直 (gěn zhí) — Straightforward / Blunt; 艮止 (gěn zhǐ) — To stop / To be still.