Hexagram 12 for love
Hexagram 12 Blockage in love and relationships
Pi is heaven rising away and earth sinking away: two parties moving in opposite directions with no point of contact. For a relationship it names a time of estrangement — conversations that go nowhere, each side retreating to its own trigram, small concerns crowding out large ones. The judgment calls it 'not favourable to the steadiness of the superior person': honesty and good conduct are not rewarded just now. The Great Image's advice is restraint: keep your virtue modest, avoid the trouble, do not seek honours.
The lines run from endurance to release. One and two hold firm with their own kind and keep faith; three harbours a motive it is ashamed of; four acts under a proper mandate as the block begins to lift; five ends the estrangement while repeating 'it could still be lost'; six overturns it and joy follows. A changing line in the lower trigram says the distance is still real and asks for endurance with integrity; one in the upper trigram says the thaw has begun and asks who will make it happen.
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
- Is hexagram 12, Blockage, a good sign for love?
- Pi is heaven rising away and earth sinking away: two parties moving in opposite directions with no point of contact. For a relationship it names a time of estrangement — conversations that go nowhere, each side retreating to its own trigram, small concerns crowding out large ones. The judgment calls it 'not favourable to the steadiness of the superior person': honesty and good conduct are not rewarded just now. The Great Image's advice is restraint: keep your virtue modest, avoid the trouble, do not seek honours.
- 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).