節
jié

60. Limitation

䷻
Above
坎 kǎn
The Abysmal, Water
Below
兌 duì
The Joyous, Lake

A lake oc­cu­pies a lim­it­ed space. When more water comes into it, it over­flows. There­fore lim­its must be set for the water. The image shows water below and water above, with the fir­ma­ment be­tween them as a limit. The Chi­nese word for lim­i­ta­tion re­al­ly de­notes the joints that di­vide a bam­boo stalk. In re­la­tion to or­di­nary life it means the thrift that sets fixed lim­its upon ex­pen­di­tures. In re­la­tion to the moral sphere it means the fixed hmits that the su­pe­ri­or man sets upon his ac­tions—the lim­its of loy­al­ty and dis­in­ter­est­ed­ness.

The Judgement

Limitation. Success.
Galling limitation must not be persevered in.

Lim­i­ta­tions are trou­ble­some, but they are ef­fec­tive. If we live eco­nom­i­cal­ly in nor­mal times, we are pre­pared for times of want. To be spar­ing saves us from hu­mil­i­a­tion. Lim­i­ta­tions are also in­dis­pens­able in the reg­u­la­tion of world con­di­tions. In na­ture there are fixed lim­its for sum­mer and win­ter, day and night, and these lim­its give the year its mean­ing. In the same way, econ­o­my, by set­ting fixed lim­its upon ex­pen­di­tures, acts to pre­serve prop­er­ty and pre­vent in­jury to the peo­ple.

But in lim­i­ta­tion we must ob­serve due mea­sure. If a man should seek to im­pose galling lim­i­ta­tions upon his own na­ture, it would be in­ju­ri­ous. And if he should go too far in im­pos­ing lim­i­ta­tions on oth­ers, they would rebel. There­fore it is nec­es­sary to set lim­its even upon lim­i­ta­tion.

The Image

Water over lake: the image of limitation.
Thus the superior man
Creates number and measure,
And examines the nature of virtue and correct
conduct.

A lake is some­thing lim­it­ed. Water is in­ex­haustible. A lake can con­tain only a def­i­nite amount of the in­fi­nite quan­ti­ty of water; this is its pe­cu­liar­i­ty. In human life too the in­di­vid­ual achieves sig­nif­i­cance through dis­crim­i­na­tion and the set­ting of lim­its. There­fore what con­cerns us here is the prob­lem of clear­ly defin­ing these dis­crim­i­na­tions, which are, so to speak, the back­bone of moral­i­ty. Un­lim­it­ed pos­si­bil­i­ties are not suit­ed to man; if they ex­ist­ed, his life would only dis­solve in the bound­less. To be­come strong, a man’s life needs the lim­i­ta­tions or­dained by duty and vol­un­tar­i­ly ac­cept­ed. The in­di­vid­ual at­tains sig­nif­i­cance as a free spir­it only by sur­round­ing hirn­self with these lim­i­ta­tions and by de­ter­min­ing for him­self what his duty is.

The Lines

Nine at the beginning means:
Not going out of the door and the courtyard
Is without blame.

Often a man who would like to un­der­take some­thing finds him­self con­front­ed by in­sur­mount­able lim­i­ta­tions. Then he must know where to stop. If he right­ly un­der­stands this and does not go be­yond the lim­its set for him, he ac­cu­mu­lates an en­er­gy that en­ables him, when the prop­er time comes, to act with great force. Dis­cre­tion is of prime im­por­tance in prepar- ing the way for mo­men­tous things. Con­cern­ing this, Con­fu­cius says:

Where dis­or­der de­vel­ops, words are the first steps. If the prince is not dis­creet, he loses his ser­vant. If the ser­vant is not dis­creet,

6o. Chieh / Lim­i­ta­tion he loses his life. If ger­mi­nat­ing things are not han­dled with dis­cre­tion, the per­fect­ing of them is im­ped­ed. There­fore the su­pe­ri­or man is care­ful to main­tain si­lence and does not go forth.

Nine in the second place means:
Not going out of the gate and the courtyard
Brings misfortune.

When the time for ac­tion has come, the mo­ment must be quick­ly seized. Just as water first col­lects in a lake with­out flow­ing out, yet is cer­tain to find an out­let when the lake is full, so it is in the life of man. It is a good thing to hes­i­tate so long as the time for ac­tion has not come, but no longer. Once the ob­sta­cles to ac­tion have been re­moved, anx­ious hes­i­ta­tion is a mis­take that is bound to bring dis­as­ter, be­cause one miss­es one’s op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Six in the third place means:
He who knows no limitation
Will have cause to lament.
No blame.

If an in­di­vid­ual is bent only on plea­sures and en­joy­ment, it is easy for him to lose his sense of the lim­its that are nec­es­sary. If he gives him­self over to ex­trav­a­gance, he will have to suf­fer the con­se­quences, with ac­com­pa­ny­ing re­gret. He must not seek to lay the blame on oth­ers. Only when we re­al­ize that our mis­takes are of our own mak­ing will such dis­agree­able ex­pe­ri­ences free us of er­rors.

Six in the fourth place means:
Contented limitation. Success.

Every lim­i­ta­tion has its value, but a lim­i­ta­tion that re­quires per­sis­tent ef­fort en­tails a cost of too much en­er­gy. When, how­ev­er, the lim­i­ta­tion is a nat­ur­al one (as for ex­am­ple, the lim­i­ta­tion by which water flows only down­hill), it nec­es­sar­i­ly leads to suc­cess, for then it means a sav­ing of en­er­gy. The en­er­gy that oth­er­wise would be con­sumed in a vain strug­gle with the ob­ject, is ap­plied whol­ly to the ben­e­fit of the mat­ter in hand, and suc­cess is as­sured.

Nine in the fifth place means:
Sweet limitation brings good fortuny.
Going brings esteem.

The lim­i­ta­tion must be car­ried out in the right way if it is to be ef­fec­tive. If we seek to im­pose re­stric­tions on oth­ers only, while evad­ing them our­selves, these re­stric­tions will al­ways be re­sent­ed and will pro­voke re­sis­tance. If, how­ev­er, a man in a lead­ing po­si­tion ap­plies the lim­i­ta­tion first to him­self, de­mand­ing lit­tle from those as­so­ci­at­ed with him, and with mod­est means man­ages to achieve some­thing, good for­tune is the re­sult. Where such an ex­am­ple oc­curs, it meets with em­u­la­tion, so that what­ev­er is un­der­tak­en must suc­ceed.

Six at the top means:
Galling limitation.
Perseverance brings misfortune.
Remorse disappears.

If one is too se­vere in set­ting up re­stric­tions, peo­ple will not en­dure them. The more con­sis­tent such sever­i­ty, the worse it is, for in the long run a re­ac­tion is un­avoid­able. In the same way, the tor­ment­ed body will rebel against ex­ces­sive as­ceti­cism. On the other hand, al­though ruth­less sever­i­ty is not to be ap­plied per­sis­tent­ly and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly, there may be times when it is the only means of safe­guard­ing against guilt and re­morse. In such sit­u­a­tions ruth­less­ness to­ward one­self is the only means of sav­ing one’s soul, which oth­er­wise would suc­cumb to ir­res­o­lu­tion and temp­ta­tion.

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