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I Ching · Hexagram 60 Limitation

Hexagram 60 line 6: Limitation, yin in the sixth place

Line 6 of a hexagram

I Ching 60.6

Galling limitation. Persistence brings misfortune. Remorse disappears.

Limits so harsh they wound, and the tradition's plain verdict that persisting in them is wrong. The remorse disappears once they are loosened. Severity beyond measure is the fault at the top of the hexagram of measure.

Advice. The limits have become cruel; loosen them and the regret goes.

What changes when line 6 moves

Line 6 of Hexagram 60 is yin, a broken line. When it is cast as old yin (a 6) it flips, and the hexagram becomes Hexagram 61, Inner Truth: Wind over the lake, an empty centre: sincerity so complete that it moves pigs and fishes, and crosses the great water.

Read together, the reading moves from Limitation toward Inner Truth. Water in a lake with a bank: limits that give form and save strength, provided they are not galling. Lake below, wind above: wind moving the surface of the water, the influence of the invisible on the visible. The hexagram's shape has two yielding lines at its centre, an emptiness in the middle, which the tradition reads as a heart free of prejudice and open to truth. The primary hexagram describes the situation; the changing line is the point of movement in it; the resulting hexagram is where that movement leads. Both hexagrams belong to the reading, and the changing line is the hinge between them.

Hexagram 60 changing to 61 →

Line 6 in context

Love & relationships
The limits have become cruel; loosen them and the regret goes. In love and relationships, Hexagram 60 reads: Boundaries, agreed and kept: what each of you needs, what each of you will not do, how much is enough. The reading favours limits that both of you accept and warns against ones that gall. The right measure makes the relationship strong at the joints.
Career
The limits have become cruel; loosen them and the regret goes. In career, Hexagram 60 reads: Discipline and economy: the scope defined, the hours set, the standard fixed. The reading favours clear limits that people can work within, and warns against constraints so tight that they break the people they were meant to shape.
Money
The limits have become cruel; loosen them and the regret goes. In money, Hexagram 60 reads: Budget. The reading is for thrift and measure, limits set deliberately and kept. It warns against both extravagance and a stinginess so severe it becomes its own harm. Find the proportion.
A decision
The limits have become cruel; loosen them and the regret goes. In decisions, Hexagram 60 reads: Choose the option with clear, bearable limits. Decide how much is enough before you decide anything else. The reading is against open-ended commitments and against ones so restrictive they cannot be kept.

← Line 5Hexagram 60 in full

Cast your own reading

The topic is pre-selected. The hexagram is not: the coins decide it.

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