睽

38. Divergence

kuí · Fire ☲ over Wind ☴

Conflict arising from difference — and the seed of shared meaning contained within it.

The Noble One's Path

Fire and a lake — separate, yet side by side. The Noble One is able to remain himself while being different from those around him — this is honesty (Yi) toward difference, not the blurring of it.

The Lesson

Don't try to force others to change. Look for what you can achieve together, despite the differences.

A question to sit with

What can I learn from someone who thinks completely differently than I do?

Related hexagrams

In the I Ching no hexagram stands alone. Each one enters into relationships with others, and those relationships show the situation seen from the other side, in its opposite, and in its hidden tendency.

63. Already completed

既濟

易

The classical deep dive for this hexagram — the Judgment and the Image after Richard Wilhelm — along with the texts of all six changing lines, is in the book. Get the book

卦

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