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䷅
Hexagram 6 of 64
Conflict
訟 · Sòng
Heaven rising while water sinks. Two elements moving apart is the classic's picture of a dispute, and the whole hexagram argues against carrying one to the end.
conflict
dispute
caution
withdrawal
- King Wen number
- 6 of 64
- Above
- ☰ Qián · Heaven
- Below
- ☵ Kǎn · Water
- Composition
- Heaven over Water
- Lines, bottom to top
- Broken · solid · broken · solid · solid · solid
- Chinese
- 訟 · Sòng
The Judgment
You are sincere and blocked, and wary. Stopping halfway brings good fortune; carrying it through to the end brings misfortune. It helps to see the great person. It does not help to cross the great water.
The classic's clearest cost-benefit warning. Being in the right is assumed here, and it is not enough to make winning worth it.
The Image
Heaven and water go their opposite ways: Conflict. So the noble person thinks through the beginning of any undertaking.
The remedy is placed before the dispute exists. Most conflicts are drafted into being by a vague start.
What it means
Conflict pairs the upper trigram of heaven, which rises, with the lower trigram of water, which sinks. The two are not fighting so much as simply diverging, which is how most real disputes begin.
The classic's counsel is remarkably consistent and slightly unromantic. It does not ask whether you are right, because it assumes you are; the Judgment opens with sincerity being blocked. It asks instead what carrying the case through will cost, and answers that the cost exceeds the win. Meeting the great person is recommended and crossing the great water is not, which together mean: seek arbitration, do not launch anything ambitious while this is running.
Four of the six lines counsel withdrawal in some form, and the two that do not are instructive. The fifth resolves the dispute by finding a competent judge. The sixth wins outright and loses the prize three times before lunch.
The Image supplies the only real remedy. Conflict is prevented at the beginning of an undertaking, in the part where terms are set and everyone is being agreeable, not in the part where positions have already hardened.
In a reading
Conflict as an answer advises against pursuing the dispute. Settle, withdraw, or find a third party with the standing to decide.
If the question was whether to escalate, the hexagram says no with unusual firmness. If a conflict is already under way, look for the earliest honourable exit rather than the most complete vindication, and read the top line before deciding that winning is the point.
The six lines
Read a line's text only when the cast made it a moving line. They are listed from the top of the figure down, the way the hexagram is drawn.
-
Nine at the top
A leather belt is awarded, and stripped away three times before the morning is out.
Winning at the top. The honour arrives and does not stay, which is the hexagram's summary of total victory.
-
Nine in the fifth place
To bring the case before this judge: supreme good fortune.
The one line where conflict resolves well, because there is finally an authority capable of settling it.
-
Nine in the fourth place
You cannot win the case. Turn back and accept how things stand; change your ground and find peace in it. Good fortune.
The moment of giving up the fight, described as a change of mind rather than a surrender.
-
Six in the third place
Live on what you already have. Steadfast in danger; in the end good fortune. If you serve a king, claim nothing.
Holding your position without contesting. The line survives by refusing to escalate.
-
Nine in the second place
You cannot win the case. Go home and slip away. The three hundred households of your town come to no harm.
Withdrawal that protects other people. Losing quietly is treated as a service, not a defeat.
-
Six at the beginning
Do not prolong the matter. A little talk, and in the end good fortune.
Letting go early. The cheapest exit in the hexagram, and the text recommends it without reservation.
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