60. Limitation

The two trigrams

above

☵

Water

坎 · kǎn

flowing water: rain, the clouds, springs, streams in defiles, the moon

below

☱

The Lake

兌 · duì

gathered water, as in a marsh or lake

The Judgement

Limitation takes its name from the joints of the bamboo, which divide the cane into regular segments and give it strength. It is the hexagram of rules: those you set yourself to manage money, time, food, words, and those that govern a family or an organisation. The ancient text promises progress and attainment, but with an essential warning: if the regulations are severe and difficult, they cannot be permanent. Legge stresses that they must be adapted to circumstances and not made too strict. If you are trying to put your life back in order, a budget, a diet, healthier working hours, less time on the phone, this hexagram encourages you: limits do good, they give shape and security. But it also tells you not to turn them into a cage you will later break in anger. The practical advice is to choose rules you can keep even on a bad day, and to allow for a few reasonable exceptions. The bamboo bends because of its joints, not in spite of them.

The Image

A lake, and above it water: the lake can hold only a certain amount, and if more flows in it overflows. The wise person, says the image, constructs his methods of numbering and measurement, and discusses virtue and conduct. For you it means putting numbers on things: how much you can spend, how many hours you can work, how much you can give without emptying yourself. Take a sheet of paper and write down your real limits, with figures and times. Then talk about them with those close to you, because a shared measure holds better than one imposed in silence.

First line

First line: you do not leave the courtyard outside your door. There is no error. You have the strength to move ahead, but in front of you there is an obstacle and further on a danger, and wisdom lies in staying put. You know when the way is clear and when it is blocked, and you regulate your steps by the moment. If you are about to accept a post, a commitment, an expense, and you sense that the time is not right, stay in your courtyard. Waiting for a good reason is not laziness.

Second line

Second line: you do not leave the courtyard inside your gate. There will be misfortune. Here the situation is the opposite of the first line: you should move, and instead you stay shut in; you badly lose the moment for action. Be careful not to mistake prudence for fear: if a good opportunity, a job, a person, an opening, knocks and you do not open, that is not measure, it is renunciation. Ask yourself honestly whether you are waiting for something or just hiding. If it is the latter, go out.

Third line

Third line: you show no sign of observing the rules, and in that case we shall see you lamenting. But there will be no one to blame except yourself. It is the line of someone who refuses every limit in search of pleasure, and discovers the mistake when it is late: spending out of control, promises not kept, health neglected. The lament, says the commentary, is already the way one blames oneself. If you recognise yourself, do not waste time crying: set a rule again, just one, this very day, and keep it.

Fourth line

Fourth line: you are quietly and naturally attentive to all the rules. There will be progress and success. Here the limit is no longer a strain: it has become habit, and you respect it without tension, because you recognise the authority of whoever set it and share its sense. If in the family or at the office there is a rule you accept serenely, you are on the right road: that is how things work. Keep going like this, without playing the hero of sacrifice: serene measure is contagious.

Fifth line

Fifth line: you enact your rules sweetly and acceptably. There will be good fortune, and the onward progress with them will earn admiration. It is the line of someone who leads by first regulating themselves, and whose influence is felt everywhere as beneficial: the rules they impose they keep first, and for that reason they are accepted. If you must have limits respected by children, collaborators, partners, begin with your own example and explain the reason calmly. A rule that springs from example needs no threats.

Sixth line

Sixth line: you enact rules that are severe and difficult. Even with firmness and correctness there will be misfortune. But though there will be cause for regret, in time it will disappear. It is the excess of Limitation: someone with an exaggerated desire to regulate everything, who ends up oppressing themselves and others. Be careful: an impossible diet, a starvation budget, total control over children or partner do not hold. Legge recalls, though, that this fault is less serious than laxity: it can be corrected. Loosen a little, and the regret will pass.

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