Yi Jing · Chinese tarot
Opposition
Hexagram 38 of the Yi Jing · 睽 Kuí
The figure
Fire above the Lake: fire rises, water descends — two movements turning their backs. The image of opposition, of misunderstanding.
What this figure illuminates
Opposition lights up divergences, the moments when understanding breaks down. But opposition is not always conflict: two differences can complement each other, if you stop trying to reduce the other to the same.
For a decision, the figure separates disagreement from rupture: “is this divergence irreducible, or a misunderstanding a little clarity could undo?”.
The classical text
The Judgment
Opposition: when things pull apart, success is still possible in small matters.
The Image
Fire climbs, the lake sinks — they move apart. Seeing this, the noble person, amid what is shared, still allows for difference.
The Six Lines
- First line
Regret dissolves. Your horses have strayed — do not chase them; they come back on their own. Even meeting the wrong sort, you take no harm.
- Second line
You meet the one you need, but only in a side-lane, by roundabout ways. No error in taking the crooked path here.
- Third line
Your cart hauled back, your ox held, and worse besides — a wretched, thwarted start. Yet what begins so badly can still end well.
- Fourth line
Alone in the estrangement, you meet a true companion and your sincerity joins with theirs. The moment is uneasy, but no mistake.
- Fifth line
Regret dissolves. You join with your true ally as easily as biting through soft skin. Go forward — what error could there be?
- Sixth line
Isolated and suspicious, you see filth and phantoms where there are none. You draw the bow — then lower it, seeing not an enemy but a kin. The tension breaks like rain: good fortune.
Daoa's wording, written after the classical reference translations, now in the public domain: James Legge (1882) and Charles de Harlez (1889).
A question to keep
Is this divergence irreducible, or a misunderstanding to undo?
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