The I Ching: A Beginner's Guide to the 64 Hexagrams by Gavin - HTML preview
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Heaven over Water
Hexagram 6 describes a standoff between two forces moving apart: it warns against pressing a grievance to the bitter end and favors settling early through a trusted mediator.
THE JUDGMENT
讼：有孚，窒惕，中吉，终凶，利见⼤⼈，不利涉⼤川。
Dispute: sincerity is present, yet it meets obstruction and calls for caution. Fortune favors the middle course; carrying the matter all the way to the end brings misfortune. It is fruitful to consult a person of real standing; it is not advantageous to cross the great river.
THE IMAGE
天与⽔违⾏，讼；君⼦以作事谋始。
Heaven and water move in opposing directions: this is Dispute. The wise person plans thoroughly at the very start of any undertaking, before competing interests can harden into open dispute.
WHAT THIS HEXAGRAM MEANS
In the received sequence, Hexagram 6 follows Hexagram 5, Patience: once needs and resources have been waited on long enough, some of them collide, and collision is what this gure names. The Chinese name 讼 points at speech brought before an authority — an accusation, a grievance, a claim pressed in front of a judge. It is also translated as Conict 44
or Lawsuit, and in older transliteration the reading is sometimes written Song rather than Sòng.
The hexagram does not say that dispute is always wrong. Sincerity is present at the start: someone has a real complaint, not an invented one.
But the situation is obstructed by its own structure, so the text urges caution rather than condence. A dispute carried to a moderate resolution can still end well; a dispute carried all the way to victory, at any cost, tends to end in loss for everyone involved, including the side that appears to win.
Practically, Hexagram 6 asks you to separate the standing you have to raise an issue from the wisdom of ghting it out alone. Seeking a capable third party — an elder, a mediator, someone with real judgment and no stake in the outcome — is treated as fruitful. Starting a new venture while the dispute is unresolved is treated as unwise, since attention and trust are already divided.
THE FIGURE
Hexagram 6 joins Heaven over Water. Qian, Heaven, presses upward and outward by its own nature; Kan, Water, sinks and settles by its own nature. Set one above the other, the two trigrams do not meet halfway —
they move apart with every line, and that steady separation is the shape of a dispute that keeps widening instead of closing.
In the six-line diagram, counted from the bottom, a broken line opens the
gure, a solid line follows it, and a second broken line completes the lower trigram: Kan, water gathering in a hollow, the classical image of hidden danger. Above that, three unbroken lines rise together to form the upper trigram Qian, heaven climbing without pause. A single yang line boxed in by yin below, three yang lines massed above — strength exposed at the 45
top, risk concealed underneath, which is exactly why this gure reads as an open dispute over a submerged cause.
THE SIX LINES
Read a line only if it came out moving (a 6 or a 9 in the coin method).
1
Let the small friction pass BOTTOM LINE
初六：不永所事，⼩有⾔，终吉。
Do not let the matter drag on. Some small criticism follows, but in the end, good fortune.
The rst line catches a dispute at its smallest: a passing complaint, a sharp word, a minor accusation that has not yet gathered weight. The advice is not to suppress it but to refuse to let it drag on past its natural size. Address it plainly, accept a little criticism if it is fair, and move forward rather than replaying the exchange. When this line changes, the situation becomes Hexagram 10, Treading
— walking a careful, exposed path where conduct matters more than argument, and where composure under scrutiny is what actually protects you.
46
Withdraw before it spreads SECOND LINE
九⼆：不克讼，归⽽逋，其⾢⼈三百户⽆眚。
He cannot win the dispute; he withdraws and goes into hiding. The three hundred households of his town are spared any harm.
At the second line, the contest is already lost or unwinnable, and pressing forward would only drag others into the fallout. The wiser move is a deliberate retreat: step back, protect the people who depend on you, and let the matter cool rather than forcing a confrontation you cannot win cleanly. When this line changes, the reading becomes Hexagram 12, Obstruction — a period where communication itself is blocked, so the priority shifts from arguing your case to simply enduring and waiting for the channel to reopen.
3
Hold the line you inherited THIRD LINE
六三：⾷旧德，贞厉，终吉，或从王事，⽆成。
Living on inherited merit, holding to what is right through danger, brings good fortune in the end. If he takes up another's cause, no credit comes to him for it.
The third line describes someone living on standing built by earlier effort, holding steady through a risky patch without seeking a fresh ght. Claiming credit or chasing a new cause here brings little reward; consistency and restraint do. If you nd yourself pulled into someone else's argument, ask whether joining actually serves you or simply borrows their risk. When this line changes, the situation becomes Hexagram 44, Encounter — an unplanned meeting that needs con-scious handling, since what arrives unbidden can still shape what comes next.
47
Turn back toward what is right FOURTH LINE
九四：不克讼，复即命，渝，安贞吉。
He cannot win the dispute. He turns back, submits to what is right, changes course, and settles into steadiness: good fortune.
The fourth line shows a dispute that cannot be won by force giving way to a better path: submission to what is actually right, rather than to whoever pushes hardest. Changing course here is not defeat — it is the choice that produces lasting steadiness once pride stops driving the decision. When this line changes, the reading becomes Hexagram 59, Scattering — tension that has built up starts to disperse, and the practical task becomes reconnecting people and resources that the standoff had pulled apart.
5
Judgment from true center FIFTH LINE
九五：讼元吉。
Dispute resolved from a position of true center: supreme good fortune.
The fth line is the gure's clearest fortune: a dispute met by someone whose position is centered, fair, and free of hidden motive, so the outcome favors everyone involved rather than one side alone. This is the line to aim for, whether you are the one deciding a matter or the one bringing it to someone else's judgment.
When this line changes, the situation becomes Hexagram 64, Not Yet Crossed
— the resolution is real, but the larger task remains unnished, so care at the threshold still matters.
48
A win that will not hold TOP LINE
上九：或锡之鞶带，终朝三褫之。
Perhaps he is awarded a ceremonial sash for the victory; before the morn-ing is over, it is stripped from him three times.
The top line describes total victory that cannot last: recognition granted for prevailing in the dispute is undone again and again before the matter is even settled for good. It is a caution against measuring success by who came out on top rather than by what was actually repaired. When this line changes, the situation becomes Hexagram 47, Adversity — a period of real constraint that asks for inner composure, since outward struggle has already shown its limits here.
49
Troops
师 · Shī