Hexagram 6: Conflict

A modern reading

Heaven and water move along diverging courses. The Image locates conflict in a relationship between movements, which helps explain how sincere people can still pull a shared undertaking apart. Its response reaches back to the beginning of an affair. Expectations, authority, and the meaning of a promise can be examined before disagreement becomes entrenched. If a dispute is already underway, the starting arrangement may reveal the assumption on which the parties separated.

The Judgment distinguishes an intermediate position from pursuing conflict to its conclusion, and advises meeting someone of great standing. It also withholds approval from the great river crossing. These ancient omens frame a dispute as a situation whose scale and direction matter. For reflection, identify what would count as an adequate resolution, who can help assess it, and whether a larger commitment would make an existing disagreement harder to contain.