EN (English)
䷋
Hexagram 12 of 64
Standstill
否 · Pǐ
The exact inversion of Peace. Heaven rises, earth sinks, they separate, and communication between above and below stops. The classic's hexagram of a blocked and dishonest time.
stagnation
obstruction
withdrawal
waiting out
- King Wen number
- 12 of 64
- Above
- ☰ Qián · Heaven
- Below
- ☷ Kūn · Earth
- Composition
- Heaven over Earth
- Lines, bottom to top
- Broken · broken · broken · solid · solid · solid
- Chinese
- 否 · Pǐ
The Judgment
Standstill, and the wrong people. It does not reward the noble person's steadfastness. The great departs and the small arrives.
The one Judgment that tells the noble person their persistence will not pay. The conditions themselves are wrong, not the effort.
The Image
Heaven and earth do not meet: Standstill. So the noble person withdraws into frugal virtue to escape the trouble, and does not let themselves be honoured with a salary.
The counsel is to become small and unpaid. Accepting a position in a corrupt period is what ties you to it.
What it means
Pi is Tai inverted, and the reversal is total. Heaven is above and moving up; earth is below and moving down. The two never meet, and every relationship the hexagram describes is one where the message does not get through.
This is the classic's account of a bad period, and its most striking feature is that it does not recommend fighting it. The Judgment states plainly that the noble person's steadfastness will not be rewarded, and the Image tells them to withdraw, live modestly and refuse office. Declining a salary is the specific advice, because taking one binds you to the arrangement and makes you part of what has to fall.
The lines chart the sequence honestly. Endurance is comfortable for those with small aims and suffocating for anyone else. Then it turns into shame, three flat characters with no commentary attached. Then a mandate appears, then relief arrives with a nervous question, and finally the standstill topples over.
The last line is the important one. This hexagram does not improve gradually. It ends.
In a reading
Standstill as an answer says the obstruction is in the conditions and not in your effort. Pushing harder makes it worse, and so does taking a position inside the blocked structure.
The counsel is to withdraw, keep your commitments small, spend little, and wait. The hexagram is explicit that this state ends, and that it ends abruptly rather than by degrees. What matters is being unencumbered when it does.
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
The standstill topples. First standstill, then rejoicing.
Blockages of this kind do not erode, they fall over. The line marks the moment the whole structure gives.
-
Nine in the fifth place
The standstill gives way. Good fortune for the great person. 'What if it fails, what if it fails' — tie it to a cluster of mulberry shoots.
Relief, immediately followed by anxiety. The classic answers the anxiety with an image of binding the new state to something that has roots.
-
Nine in the fourth place
Acting under a mandate: no blame. Those of the same kind share the blessing.
The first movement out. Authority to act appears, and it benefits everyone aligned with it.
-
Six in the third place
They bear shame.
Three characters. Compliance has gone past endurance into something the text will not dignify further.
-
Six in the second place
They bear and endure. Good fortune for small people. For the great person, standstill, and through it, success.
Two verdicts in one line. What is comfortable for the compliant is stifling for anyone else, and the discomfort is the way through.
-
Six at the beginning
Pull up the couch grass and its roots come up in a clump. Steadfastness brings good fortune and success.
The same image that opened Peace, now used for withdrawal. People leave together as readily as they set out together.
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