Hexagram 12 as yes or no
Hexagram 12 Blockage as a yes-or-no answer
To a 'should I' question Pi answers no, for now. The judgment is heaven and earth not in communication, 'the great goes, the small comes': the channels your plan needs are closed, and effort spent now goes against the grain. The hexagram does not say the thing is wrong, only that the time does not carry it and correct conduct goes unrewarded until it turns.
The changing line fixes where in the standstill you are. One, two and three are all 'not yet': hold with your kind, decline the easy route, and be honest about any motive you would be ashamed to state. Four is the first qualified yes — proceed if you have an explicit mandate from above, not otherwise. Five is yes for the person able to end the block, with the condition of constant vigilance. Six is yes: the obstruction is at its end and the right move is to overturn it. So a lower-trigram changing line means wait; an upper-trigram one means the answer is turning, from authorised action to open relief.
The hexagram in brief
Heaven and earth pulling apart: nothing communicates. The great departs, the small arrives; the unworthy prosper while the worthy keep still.
Withdraw, conserve, and don't take office or honours now; stagnation gives way to return if you endure with integrity.
The judgment
否之匪人，不利君子貞，大往小來。In Phî there is the want of good understanding between the (different classes of) men, and its indication is unfavourable to the firm and correct course of the superior man. We see in it the great gone and the little come.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 否 Blockage has its own page:
- 初六Six at the beginninggrass with its roots · withdraw together · loyal aim
- 六二Six in the second placebearing and obeying · great man accepts · not joining the herd
- 六三Six in the third placeshame harboured · wrong place · hidden motive
- 九四Nine in the fourth placea mandate · no blame · companions share the blessing
- 九五Nine in the fifth placeending obstruction · it may perish! · bound to the mulberry
- 上九Nine at the topobstruction overturned · first blocked, then joy · cannot last
The same hexagram for
Questions
- Does hexagram 12, Blockage, mean yes or no?
- To a 'should I' question Pi answers no, for now. The judgment is heaven and earth not in communication, 'the great goes, the small comes': the channels your plan needs are closed, and effort spent now goes against the grain. The hexagram does not say the thing is wrong, only that the time does not carry it and correct conduct goes unrewarded until it turns.
- What does Hexagram 12, 否 Blockage, mean?
- Heaven and earth pulling apart: nothing communicates. The great departs, the small arrives; the unworthy prosper while the worthy keep still.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).