Hexagram 60 for work
Hexagram 60 Measure for work and career
The Great Image of Jie is the superior person who 'establishes numbers and measures and deliberates on virtue and conduct': rules, budgets of effort, standards for behaviour. At work it is the hexagram of scope — the project that succeeds because its limits were set, the negotiation that holds because each side knows its limits, the team that runs on clear and livable norms. The Tuan is explicit that regulation done well 'does not injure resources and does not harm people'; done bitterly, it exhausts itself.
The lines are a manual of timing and tone. Line one waits because the exit is blocked; line two keeps waiting after it opens and is condemned for losing the moment. Line four follows a standard set from above without strain; line five sets standards people are glad to keep; the top line has turned rules into punishment. A changing line in the lower trigram asks whether your restraint still matches the situation; one in the upper trigram asks whether the limits you are living under or imposing are sweet or bitter.
The hexagram in brief
Water above the lake: the lake holds just so much. Success through limits — but bitter, excessive limitation cannot be sustained; measure that fits is the point.
Set clear, livable limits — on spending, on words, on work — and keep them without turning them into punishment.
The judgment
節：亨。苦節，不可貞。Kieh intimates that (under its conditions) there will be progress and attainment. (But) if the regulations (which it prescribes) be severe and difficult, they cannot be permanent.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 節 Measure has its own page:
- 初九Nine at the beginningstaying in · knowing when blocked · no blame
- 九二Nine in the second placemissing the moment · staying in too long · evil
- 六三Six in the third placeno measure · lament · no one else to blame
- 六四Six in the fourth placemeasure at ease · accepting the way above · success
- 九五Nine in the fifth placesweet measure · the centre · going on is honoured
- 上六Six at the topbitter measure · the way exhausted · regret passes
The same hexagram for
Questions
- What does hexagram 60, Measure, mean for a career question?
- The Great Image of Jie is the superior person who 'establishes numbers and measures and deliberates on virtue and conduct': rules, budgets of effort, standards for behaviour. At work it is the hexagram of scope — the project that succeeds because its limits were set, the negotiation that holds because each side knows its limits, the team that runs on clear and livable norms. The Tuan is explicit that regulation done well 'does not injure resources and does not harm people'; done bitterly, it exhausts itself.
- What does Hexagram 60, 節 Measure, mean?
- Water above the lake: the lake holds just so much. Success through limits — but bitter, excessive limitation cannot be sustained; measure that fits is the point.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).