The Book of Changes · Jie

Hexagram 60: Limitation

Water (the gorge and the deep) over Lake (still water held in a hollow)

The joints of a bamboo: a limit that makes growth possible rather than one that prevents it. The tradition immediately adds that galling limitation must not be persevered in, so the figure limits itself.

The image

Water over the lake. The reading is that a person creates number and measure, and examines the nature of virtue and correct conduct.

Water, above

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

Lake, below

Openness, pleasure, and what is said out loud.

The six lines

Read from the bottom up.

1. Line 1Not going out of the door. No fault: the limit is correct while it is correct.
2. Line 2Not going out of the gate. Misfortune: the same restraint, held past the moment for it.
3. Line 3Knowing no limit, and having cause to regret it. No fault in whom it lands on.
4. Line 4A limit you are content inside. That is what makes it work.
5. Line 5A limit that is not bitter. Good fortune, and going on from it brings esteem.
6. Line 6A limit that galls. Constancy brings misfortune, and the regret lifts once it breaks.

The same figure in Human Design

Human Design took its sixty four gates from this book, in this numbering, so hexagram 60 is Gate 60, Acceptance.