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I Ching · Hexagram 60 Limitation

Hexagram 60 for love and relationships: Limitation

節 Jié · Love & relationships

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.

Lake below, water above: a lake that holds only so much, and overflows past its limit. Limitation describes measure: the boundaries, rules and economies that give a life or an undertaking its shape. The Chinese character is the joint of a bamboo stalk, the division that makes the whole strong. The tradition's judgement is that limitation brings success, and that galling limitation must not be persisted in. Limits are good when they fit and harmful when they crush. The image is of the wise person creating number and measure and examining the nature of virtue and conduct. The reading says the situation asks for limits, chosen deliberately, and asks you to set them where they strengthen rather than where they strangle.

Advice
Set limits deliberately, where they give form and save strength, and keep them; loosen any that gall.
Warning
A limit that crushes is persisted in only at the cost of what it was meant to protect.

The changing lines, read for love and relationships

If your cast of Hexagram 60 had changing lines, these are what each one adds to a love question, and where each leads.

  1. Line 1 · changes into 29 The Abysmal

    Not going out of the door and the courtyard is without blame. Stay within your bounds for now; it is the right time to hold back.

  2. Line 2 · changes into 3 Difficulty at the Beginning

    Not going out of the gate and the courtyard brings misfortune. The time to hold back has passed; go out.

  3. Line 3 · changes into 5 Waiting

    He who knows no limitation will have cause to lament. No blame. If you have overdone it, let the regret teach the limit; no further blame.

  4. Line 4 · changes into 58 The Joyous

    Contented limitation. Success. Make your limits natural, not a struggle; that is the success.

  5. Line 5 · changes into 19 Approach

    Sweet limitation brings good fortune. Going brings esteem. Set the limits and keep them yourself first; then they are accepted gladly.

  6. Line 6 · changes into 61 Inner Truth

    Galling limitation. Persistence brings misfortune. Remorse disappears. The limits have become cruel; loosen them and the regret goes.

Hexagram 60 in fullCareerMoneyA decision

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