The Book of Changes · Jian

Hexagram 39: Obstruction

Water (the gorge and the deep) over Mountain (the peak)

Water on the mountain: a real obstacle, in front and not going away. The whole hexagram turns on one instruction, which is to stop and look at yourself rather than at the obstruction.

The image

Water on the mountain. The reading is that a person turns their attention around and works on their own character, because that is the part available to be changed.

Water, above

Danger, depth, and what has to be gone through.

Mountain, below

Stillness, limit, and the place where a thing stops.

The six lines

Read from the bottom up.

1. Line 1Going forward meets the obstruction; coming back meets praise. The direction is the reading.
2. Line 2One barrier and then the next, and none of it your doing. Serving something larger, and paying for it.
3. Line 3Going forward meets it, so you come back. That is not defeat.
4. Line 4Going forward meets it; coming back finds company. What you need is behind you.
5. Line 5At the worst of it, friends arrive. The obstruction is what brought them.
6. Line 6Coming back opens the whole thing. Go and see the person who can actually help.

The same figure in Human Design

Human Design took its sixty four gates from this book, in this numbering, so hexagram 39 is Gate 39, Provocation.