Jie: from the courtyards to sweet and bitter limits

Water over a lake: Dui below, Kan above

Jie (節) is Kan (water) above and Dui (lake) below. The Shuo Gua gives Kan the word “sinking in” and Dui the word “delight”. From the bottom the lines are yang, yang, yin, then yin, yang, yin: three yang lines (1, 2, 5) and three yin lines (3, 4, 6), exactly three of each.

Open the full-size diagram

Jie and its inverse Lü: the inverse hexagram changes every line to the opposite polarity.

The judgment and the Commentary: a limit that passes, a limit that is bitter

The judgment of Jie has two sentences: success; a bitter limit cannot be kept. The first says it passes through, the second that a limit pushed too far cannot be held. The Commentary on the Judgments explains both ends.

Jie, success: the firm and the yielding are divided, and the firm holds the center. “A bitter limit cannot be kept”: its way has run out. Delighting in order to pass through danger, standing in its place to set limits, central and correct and so getting through. Heaven and earth have their limits and the four seasons are completed. Limits set by measure do not injure wealth or harm the people.

The first half can be read off the figure. “The firm and the yielding are divided”: three yang lines and three yin lines hold three places each, as neatly separated as can be. “The firm holds the center”: lines 2 and 5 are the yang lines in the middle of their trigrams. “Delighting in order to pass through danger” reads the two trigrams together: Dui below is delight, Kan above is danger, and delight carries one through. “Standing in its place to set limits, central and correct” is traditionally read as line 5: a yang line sitting where yang belongs, in the fifth place, at the middle of the upper trigram. Then the Commentary lifts limits to heaven and earth and brings them back to human affairs: limits by measure do not injure wealth or harm the people. The final clause, “a bitter limit cannot be kept”, returns to the judgment: a limit can be sweet or bitter, and when the bitterness is complete the way no longer goes through.

The Great Image: fix numbers and measures, deliberate on conduct

The Great Image of Jie reads:

Water over the lake: Jie. The noble person fixes numbers and measures, and deliberates on virtue and conduct.

Water stands above the lake. Tradition usually reads it this way: a lake holds only so much, and once water stands on top of it there has to be a limit. From this the noble person takes two tasks: to fix numbers and measures, and to deliberate on virtue and conduct.

Numbers and measures are limits of quantity: how much, how long, how large. “Deliberate on virtue and conduct” is a different kind: virtue and conduct are things to be discussed and judged. Under the one word Jie, one hand sets amounts and the other considers character.

Six lines: first thresholds, then tastes

The six statements fall into two parts: the first two are thresholds, and the last four are the taste of a limit.

Line 1 says he stays inside the yard of the house, and there is no blame. Tradition usually takes this as the yard just within the door. The Small Image (小象) says he knows what is open and what is blocked. Line 2 says he stays inside the yard of the gate, and there is misfortune; this is the yard within the outer gate. One word differs and the result is the opposite; the Small Image says he has missed the time, and utterly.

Line 3: “if there is no limit, then sighing; no blame.” The Small Image adds: for one who sighs for want of a limit, whom else is there to blame? Line 4, “limits taken in ease: success”; the Small Image says he takes up the way of the one above, and line 4 stands right below line 5. Line 5, “limits that are sweet: good fortune; going has something to be valued”; the Small Image says he stands in the central position. Line 6, “bitter limits: persisting brings misfortune; regret vanishes”; the Small Image says its way has run out.

That sentence has already appeared in the Commentary: “a bitter limit cannot be kept; its way has run out”. The Small Image of line 6 writes it again almost word for word, one speaking of the whole figure and the other of this one line.

Before “limit”, the words run: none, easy, sweet, bitter. Without a limit there is sighing, with ease there is success, with sweetness good fortune, with bitterness misfortune: the text writes one word in four tastes.

Huan, Lü and Yi: neighbors of Jie and its place after Huan

Turn Jie upside down and you get Huan, its reversed hexagram. The inverse hexagram is Lü, already in the figure above. Its nuclear hexagram is Yi (頤), built from the inner lines: Zhen (yang, yin, yin) below, Gen (yin, yin, yang) above. Huan has the same nuclear hexagram.

The Xu Gua says:

Things cannot stay scattered to the end, so what follows is Jie.

What has scattered cannot stay scattered, and so a limit is set. After Jie the Xu Gua says “limits, then trust”, and Zhongfu (中孚) follows. The Za Gua also puts Huan and Jie in one line:

Huan is separating; Jie is stopping.

One separates and one stops. Set against the inverse hexagram Lü, the traveler is outside while the first two lines of Jie stay inside the courtyards.