12. Pǐ 否
INACTIVITY, STAGNATION, DISHARMONY
INACTIVITY, STAGNATION, DISHARMONY
Do not get carried away by illusions; there may be problems. Conserve energy and wait - better times will come.
Do not get carried away by illusions; there may be problems. Conserve energy and wait - better times will come.
Hexagram Structure
The make-up here is the same as in the eleventh sign, but the forces have returned to their natural places, and that is exactly why they no longer meet. The strong one standing above has nowhere to rise towards; the soft one lying below has nothing to answer with. Each beginning moves away from the other, and stagnation sets in. The formula of the sign mirrors the previous one: the great departs, the small arrives. The creative runs dry, and the vacated place is taken by people of a petty sort, whose actions are not checked against clear knowledge. The source describes this moment from within as well: the likeness of truth, an almost-truth, is taken for truth itself, and such a substitution brings knowledge down harder than any blow from outside. Yet the decline is not a dead end but a phase of a cycle: it follows flowering by law and by the same law will be lived through. This sign closes the line of a personality's independent growth; further on, in the thirteenth hexagram, the joint work of like-minded people begins.
How It Works in Practice
Judge what you can see soberly: much is unclear to you right now, and admitting that is worth doing before you act. A separate nuisance of the period is your circle: people unworthy of you are drawn to you, and telling them apart matters more than being courteous with everyone. Your wallet is also worth watching these days, quite literally.
In business, a pause regime. Better not to take on anything substantial now: wishes will come true to about four fifths, and not at once at that, and such a return pays back large stakes badly. Small current matters are the normal scale for this stretch, and carried through to the end they will keep the sense of movement.
In relationships friction over nothing is possible: the people around you do not understand you, and quarrels with friends can flare up without sufficient grounds. Knowing this in advance, part of the conflicts can simply be left unstarted — a pause before a sharp reply will save more now than any apologies later.
The direct advice rests on two supports. The first is vigilance and forethought: in a time of stagnation the price of inattention is higher than usual. The second is independence in what matters: hear out the advice of your superiors and weigh it, but make the decision yourself. Someone else's experience is useful now as material, not as a ready answer, and the final responsibility will stay with you anyway.
Traditional Description
Above is the trigram Qian (Heaven), below is the trigram Kun (Earth). The metaphorical image of this hexagram is unworthy (foolish) people governing the situation, driven by momentary selfish interests, justice and rational approach cannot be expected from them. If the inverted positions of the two trigrams in the hexagram Tai (Prosperity) show a favorable mixture of Earth and Heaven, here these two trigrams are distant and alienated from each other. Heaven strives upwards, Earth downwards, there is no connection or contact. The result is an obstacle and negativity. Where strength is above and weakness below, everything can easily fall apart; where strength is outside and weakness inside, there is only superficiality and impermanence. This is a time when the important and great departs. Immediately, everything related to momentary gain, only the small and insignificant arrives.
This is a time for conservation, not dispersal of one’s forces and energy. The original Chinese text uses the image of ‘impossibility to distinguish oneself in service’. Those who think only of themselves and forget about the people around them may temporarily gain power and authority, but it will not last long and will not bring benefit to anyone. An alternative image for understanding this hexagram is a state of illness, in which the patient needs to accumulate strength and help the body to cope with the affliction. If he pretends to be healthy and does not accept the situation as it is, the illness will only worsen.
The hexagram warns us that if we allow ourselves to be carried away by illusions, we face only the aggravation of problems. In such periods of misfortune, Pi reminds us to remain steadfast and remember that all states are temporary and better times will definitely come.nnnnn
I Ching Talking
First decline, then joy.
Hexagram Line Descriptions
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The top line overturns the stagnation for good. The order of events matters: first still decline and only then joy — this situation gives away no easy transitions even at the exit. But the outcome is settled: the process is liquidated, the stagnation lived through, and ahead there takes shape quite a different work, a joint one, among like-minded people, to which the next sign is devoted. The joy of this step is of a particular kind — not a win but the relief of a person who stood firm, prettified nothing and waited out the end of a bad stretch.
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The fifth step is the maximum of creative forces, and the great person puts them to direct use: an energetic intervention halts the decline. The mood of the position is anxious vigilance, a constant "if only it does not perish". Hence the image: to tie what has been saved to the trunk of a lushly growing mulberry, to fasten the first victories to something living and firm. Knowledge is cleansed of illusions, and stability comes to whoever remembers that a halted decline is not yet cancelled, and that it is too early to let attention go.
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The first gap of light. Creative activity returns to the situation, and the improvement comes as a command from above — not by the merit of the moment but by the will of fate, which at last has something to lean on; there will be no reproaches for the past. A chance appears to repair the damage done by false convictions. The blessing extends to those nearby as well: the good outcome depends on the most mature, most advanced elements of the knowledge accumulated, and they now work for everyone who held together.
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The bottom of the sign. The passage from inner to outer falls on the moment when the dark forces are developed to their limit, and outward action is doomed. Worse, it is here that the likeness of truth is finally taken for truth itself, and a person lives inside that substitution. The only activity available is to bear the shame for the state of things with courage, without turning away and without prettifying. Honestly lived through, this shame turns out to be the one unfeigned thing on the whole step, and the future correction starts from it.
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A step on which petty people feel excellent: the setting matches their level, and the stagnation counts as good fortune for them. For the great person the same moment is arranged differently — the path here is called development within decline. Restrictions press from every side, but they are exactly what serves as the impulse to grow. The way out of this step is to take in those who adjoin: to give room to whoever reaches towards you, to let them grow, and so to build around yourself the environment that the time does not let form by itself.
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The same image that opened the previous sign: reeds grow in a bunch, one stalk pulls the rest along. But the advice here is different. There the intergrown roots called for a campaign; here they hold people together — at the start of stagnation what saves is steadfastness, not setting out. Decline in its first stage is still easy to overcome, and it is overcome together: like-minded people who keep hold of one another are able to put the position right. The main thing is to spot the harm of false convictions in time and turn back to truth before separateness becomes a habit.
The curve of the six steps is asymmetrical: the three lower ones describe the deepening of stagnation — from the first signs through the contentment of petty people to the fullness of shame — while the three upper ones dismantle it one after another. In that arrangement lies the sign's chief consolation: decline contains its own ending, the lowest point is passed through rather than kept for ever. Little is required of a person, but firmly: not to take the likeness of truth for truth, not to scatter, to keep one's own people, and to join the correction when the time comes.