Hexagram 63: Ji Ji

Water over Fire · 水火既济 · Tendency: Inauspicious

Structure

• Number: 63 (King Wen sequence)
• Symbol: ䷾
• Upper trigram: Kan (Water)
• Lower trigram: Li (Fire)
• Lines: yang yin yang yin yang yin (bottom to top)

The statement

亨小，利贞。初吉终乱。

——《周易》

What this hexagram indicates

Matters are nearly complete or have reached a temporary balance; it is suitable to wrap up, review, and consolidate results. The closer you are to the end, the more you must stay vigilant, because success can easily give way to new chaos. Guard against risks in advance and don't let small oversights undermine what has already been achieved.

A Buddhist reading

When everything has been accomplished is exactly when care is most needed, and Zhixu reads the whole of Jiji (After Completion) through one line of the image: think of trouble and guard against it beforehand. Boats capsize not at the famous rapids but in a ditch, horses stumble not on the narrow pass but on level ground, because disaster grows out of what was not foreseen and no misfortune is worse than being unprepared. Fine silk turns to rags in the end, so the fourth line stays on guard all day, and the fifth teaches that a modest offering made with sincerity outweighs a lavish one. Completion is where vigilance belongs.

After Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655), whose Chan commentary on the Changes reads each hexagram as a stage of practice.

The statement is quoted from the Book of Changes, which is in the public domain. The English reading on this page was prepared for this library.

Related hexagrams

• Previous: Hexagram 62: Xiao Guo
• Next / Inverted / Opposite / Nuclear: Hexagram 64: Wei Jithe whole figure turned upside down; every line changed to its opposite; lines two to four below, three to five above

Related

• Liu Yao Divination ChartLiu Yao casts a hexagram about one specific matter and reads its structure. Unlike BaZi or Zi Wei, which describe a person, Liu Yao describes how a situation stands at a particular moment. This page walks through the full process from casting to attribution.
• Mei Hua Yi Shu CalculatorMei Hua Yi Shu is traditionally attributed to Shao Yong. What sets it apart is how freely it casts: a time, a spoken number, a direction or something noticed in passing will all serve. It attaches no stems and no relatives, reading the trigrams directly. This page covers casting through to the subject and object.