Hexagram 60
節
Jié
Limitation
Upper Trigram
坎 Kǎn
Water — Abysmal
Lower Trigram
兌 Duì
Lake — Joyous
Classical Texts
The Judgment
亨。苦節不可貞。
The Image
澤上有水,節。君子以制數度,議德行。
The Lines
Line 1
初九 不出戶庭。无咎。
Line 2
九二 不出門庭。凶。
Line 3
六三 不節若。則嗟若。无咎。
Line 4
六四 安節亨。
Line 5
九五 甘節吉。往有尚。
Line 6
上六 苦節貞凶。悔亡。

Newton
William Blake, 1795
Limitation
Isaac Newton hunches naked on a rock at the ocean floor, measuring geometric diagrams with a compass. William Blake created this color print in 1795, depicting the scientist as prisoner of his own rationality. Newton's entire world contracts to the scroll before him—triangles, circles, precise mathematical relationships. The submarine setting suggests depths of materialist thought, reason descended so far into quantification that it loses sight of the spiritual cosmos above. His muscular body curls inward, self-imposed limitation blocking larger truths.
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Blake illustrates what Zhou diviners called Jie (節), Limitation—Water above Lake, the trigram Kan over Dui. Water contained within defined banks, lake shores establishing natural boundaries. The character 節 depicts bamboo joints, regular divisions that provide structure through measured intervals. Newton's obsessive measuring represents limitation turned destructive—boundaries so rigid they blind rather than preserve. Yet the hexagram teaches that some limitations make things possible. A vessel contains water by limiting its spread, musical scales organize sound through regulated intervals, bamboo's segmented structure creates strength. Ancient practitioners saw this configuration when questions concerned resource management, necessary restraint, the acceptance of sustainable boundaries. Blake depicted Isaac Newton hunched on a rock at the sea floor, obsessively measuring geometric diagrams with a compass. The scientist ignores the spiritual cosmos above, limiting his vision to mathematical rationality. Limitation (Jie) describes necessary boundaries—here Blake critiques self-imposed constraints that blind one to larger truths. The Judgment addresses Newton's self-imposed constraints: "Limitation. Success. Galling limitation must not be persevered in." Blake critiques excessive restriction—Newton's self-limitation has become galling, cutting him off from imaginative and spiritual understanding. Zhou Dynasty texts describe limitation as necessary but requiring limitation itself. Banks that make a river useful can also choke its flow. In divination, Jie appeared when circumstances required clear boundaries, when waste demanded prevention through measured response. The Image Text offers guidance Blake might endorse: "Water over lake: the image of Limitation. Thus the superior one creates number and measure, and examines the nature of virtue and correct conduct." The hexagram distinguishes between limitation that preserves and restriction that imprisons. In the I-Ching sequence, Jie follows Dispersion—after scattering comes the need to re-establish structure, but Blake warns that structure serving only itself becomes a prison deeper than any ocean.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 60 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.

海為水王,聰聖且明。百流歸德,无有叛逆,常饒優足。
The sea is king of waters, perceptive, sagely, and wise. A hundred streams return in homage; none rebel or resist. Ever abundant, ever ample.
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Water over lake doubled — Limitation reflecting itself. The sea is king of all waters, wise and perceptive in its rule. A hundred rivers return to its virtue, and none rebels or defects; abundance and sufficiency are constant. The verse celebrates the source hexagram's own principle in its purest form: the sea does not chase the rivers — it simply occupies the lowest point, and all waters flow toward it naturally. Its sovereignty is the sovereignty of position, not force. From Limitation to Limitation, the identity transformation affirms that true regulation needs no external enforcement. When the measure itself is just, compliance is spontaneous. The sea's '聰聖且明' — wise, sagacious, and clear — describes the ideal of governance as a gravitational field that orders the world simply by being what it is.
中文注释
澤上有水,節之自映。海為水王——百川之宗,聰聖且明。百流歸德,無有叛逆,常饒優足。海不逐川而川自歸——居最低處而萬水朝宗,其主權在於位勢而非武力。節至節,同卦自返——真正的制度無須外在強制。度量本身公正,則順從自發。海之智慧、聖明、清澈,乃治理之理想:如引力場,以自身之存在即整合天下。制數度、議德行——節之本義在此達到圓滿之自我詮釋。
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Water (坎)
Same lower trigram: Lake (兌)