Hexagram 6: Conflict

訟 (Sòng)

Disputes and arguments that require careful resolution.

Overview

If this sign has come to you, get ready to step back from your affairs quite soon and rethink what you value in life.

Events are building up in your fate that pull the inner and the outer apart. This is a time to turn inward for a while and ask whether what you do really matches the goals you set. Judge your future gains and chances for yourself, but do not let this review of the past and the future turn into going over yourself again and again. That road ends in being unhappy with yourself and with your life.

If you blame yourself for mistakes, let that criticism build you up rather than tear you down. Do not forget the successes you have had. Write a list of your achievements if that helps, and look at what you have reached. Do not think too little of yourself. While you look inward, remember this: everything you do and think about should help you become yourself in your inner life and in your outer life alike. Then you can reach a great deal.

People around you

Take as much as you can from your relationships with the people around you. Do not spend your time talking and sitting with people who do not interest you. Keep small talk short. A conversation should be interesting for you and for the other person.

Work and rest

At work, be strict about how you spend your energy and your time, and do not waste them on things that do not matter. Try to take turns between work and rest. That is how you will get the most out of both.

Your wish

Your wish depends on whether an influential person among the people around you is willing to give you real support. Work out who can truly help, and win that person over. The more willingly they take it on, the greater the result will be.

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 6 is Heaven over Water. Its two inner, or nuclear, trigrams are Wind/Wood over Fire. What the eight trigrams mean.

Upper trigram (lines 4–6): Qián · Heaven Creative and strong
Lower trigram (lines 1–3): Kǎn · Water Deep and dangerous
Upper nuclear (lines 3–5): Xùn · Wind/Wood Gentle and penetrating
Lower nuclear (lines 2–4): Lí · Fire Clinging and bright