Hexagram 11: Peace

泰 (Tài)

Harmony, prosperity, and good fortune through balance.

Overview

This is one of the most fortunate signs in the Book of Changes. In the earlier stages of your life there were few chances of success, because so many obstacles came from outside you. They were not of your own making: fate put them in your path, so that you could learn from your own mistakes. At the time you were hardly grateful for that. Now you can see the lesson was useful. The rough and thorny road has finally turned into a smooth one that is a pleasure to walk. You do not even have to spend time and energy looking for the right direction, because it is clear enough.

Go where fate leads you, and go boldly. Your wish looks to be waiting at the end of that road. Just decide which wish matters most to you.

Fate has taken your side for a reason. Soon you may understand what you need and go straight for it.

People around you

It often happens in life that when you are unlucky you are unlucky in everything, and when you are lucky you are lucky in everything. Not long ago it was hard for you to find anyone who would help. Now fate is making up for the loss. It is as if all the people around you had agreed to help you. You do not need to worry about these relations. They should be smooth and fruitful.

Work and rest

This sign holds a balance between light and dark, between active creation and quiet acceptance. So share out your time wisely between work and rest, and you will be fully content with your life.

Your wish

This is a good time for your wish to come true. Whatever the season is outside, for you it is spring. Be bolder in your plans and in what you imagine. Drop your usual caution. You can reach things now that would have seemed impossible.

This Overview is one traditional reading of the figure, offered as a prompt for reflection and perspective rather than a prediction of a fixed future. Where this material comes from.

New to the sequence? See how lines, trigrams and changing lines work, or cast your own reading with the three-coin method.

Structure

Read from the bottom upward, hexagram 11 is Earth over Heaven. Its two inner, or nuclear, trigrams are Thunder over Lake. What the eight trigrams mean.

Upper trigram (lines 4–6): Kūn · Earth Receptive and devoted
Lower trigram (lines 1–3): Qián · Heaven Creative and strong
Upper nuclear (lines 3–5): Zhèn · Thunder Arousing and moving
Lower nuclear (lines 2–4): Duì · Lake Joyous and open

Hexagrams this one is connected to by its structure rather than by its number.

Opposite and Reversed:: 12. Standstill — Every one of the six lines flipped and the same figure turned upside down.
Nuclear:: 54. Marrying Maiden — The figure formed by the four inner lines.