The Book of Changes · Ji Ji

Hexagram 63: After Completion

Water (the gorge and the deep) over Fire (flame and the sun)

Everything in its correct place, every line where it should be, and the tradition immediately says that this is the most precarious position in the book. Order at its most complete is where disorder starts.

The image

Water over fire. The reading is that a person takes thought of misfortune and arms themselves against it in advance, because nothing else is left to do.

Water, above

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

Fire, below

Clarity, attachment, and what depends on its fuel.

The six lines

Read from the bottom up.

1. Line 1Braking the wheels, and getting the tail wet. No fault: caught at the start.
2. Line 2What is lost is not worth chasing. It comes back in seven days.
3. Line 3Three years to subdue it, and the wrong people must not be used for it. A long campaign that outlasts enthusiasm.
4. Line 4The finest clothes turn to rags. Be careful all day: the decline is in the maintenance.
5. Line 5The small offering made honestly receives more than the large one made for show.
6. Line 6Head in the water. The crossing is finished and you are still crossing.

The same figure in Human Design

Human Design took its sixty four gates from this book, in this numbering, so hexagram 63 is Gate 63, Doubt.