节 Limitation
Upper trigram: Water (water) · Lower trigram: Lake (the lake)
Boundaries — measured limits create freedom.
Modern interpretation
Set limits: on spending, time, words, appetite. Measured boundaries are not a prison — they are what make freedom sustainable. Discipline chosen now prevents regret later. Name your limits out loud.
The Judgment · 卦辞
亨。苦节，不可贞。
“Kieh intimates that (under its conditions) there will be progress and attainment. (But) if the regulations (which it prescribes) be severe and difficult, they cannot be permanent.” — 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.
不出户庭，无咎。
“The first line, undivided, shows its subject not quitting the courtyard outside his door. There will be no error.”
不出门庭，凶。
“The second line, undivided, shows its subject not quitting the courtyard inside his gate. There will be evil.”
不节若，则嗟若，无咎。
“The third line, divided, shows its subject with no appearance of observing the (proper) regulations, in which case we shall see him lamenting. But there will be no one to blame (but himself).”
安节。亨。
“The fourth line, divided, shows its subject quietly and naturally (attentive to all) regulations. There will be progress and success.”
甘节，吉，往有尚。
“The fifth line, undivided, shows its subject sweetly and acceptably enacting his regulations. There will be good fortune. The onward progress with them will afford ground for admiration.”
苦节，贞凶，悔亡。
“The topmost line, divided, shows its subject enacting regulations severe and difficult. Even with firmness and correctness there will be evil. But though there will be cause for repentance, it will (by and by) disappear.”
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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