否 Standstill
Upper trigram: Heaven (the sky) · Lower trigram: Earth (the earth)
Stagnation — the energy is blocked; withdraw and conserve.
Modern interpretation
Pushing will not clear this blockage. Conserve your energy, withdraw gracefully from what is stuck, and wait for the season to turn. What looks like failure is often simply winter — nothing grows, but nothing is lost either.
The Judgment · 卦辞
否之匪人，不利君子贞，大往小来。
“In Phî there is the want of good understanding between the (different classes of) men, and its indication is unfavourable to the firm and correct course of the superior man. We see in it the great gone and the little come.” — James Legge, The Yî King (1882)
The six lines · 爻辞
Read from the bottom line upward. Each line pairs the received Chinese text with Legge's English translation.
拔茅茹以其汇。贞吉，亨。
“The first line, divided, suggests the idea of grass pulled up, and bringing with it other stalks with whose roots it is connected. With firm correctness (on the part of its subject), there will be good fortune and progress.”
包承，小人吉，大人否。亨。
“The second line, divided, shows its subject patient and obedient. To the small man (comporting himself so) there will be good fortune. If the great man (comport himself) as the distress and obstruction require, he will have success.”
包羞。
“The third line, divided, shows its subject ashamed of the purpose folded (in his breast).”
有命，无咎，畴离祉。
“The fourth line, undivided, shows its subject acting in accordance with the ordination (of Heaven), and committing no error. His companions will come and share in his happiness.”
休否，大人吉。其亡其亡，系于苞桑。
“In the fifth line, undivided, we see him who brings the distress and obstruction to a close, the great man and fortunate. (But let him say), ‘We may perish! We may perish!’ (so shall the state of things become firm, as if) bound to a clump of bushy mulberry trees.”
倾否，先否后喜。
“The sixth line, undivided, shows the overthrow (and removal of) the condition of distress and obstruction. Before this there was that condition. Hereafter there will be joy.”
About changing lines
In a real I Ching reading, hexagrams are built by casting coins or yarrow stalks six times, bottom line first. Some lines come out “old” (unstable) — an old yin or old yang flips into its opposite, producing a second hexagram that shows where the situation is heading. The changing lines are the moving parts of your answer: read their individual line statements above, and they point to the direction of change.
Ask a question and cast the coins — free, with a plain-English interpretation grounded in the classical text.
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