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Hexagram 60 of 64

I Ching hexagram 60 ☵☱ Limitation

I Ching hexagram 60, Limitation, is water above, lake below. In brief: useful boundaries. Counting from the bottom, its solid lines sit in places 1, 2 and 5 and its broken lines in 3, 4 and 6.

Lines, bottom up
⚊⚊⚋⚋⚊⚋ 110010 · 1 = solid
Trigrams
Water over Lake Kan ☵ / Dui ☱
Every line changed
№ 56 The Wanderer
In Legge, 1882
p. 197 Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16

Legge, The Yî King, 1882.

Paired with it line by line — changed, turned over or read from the inner lines: 56, The Wanderer, 59, Dispersion and 27, Nourishment.

Also with Water above: 3, Difficulty at the Beginning, 5, Waiting and 8, Holding Together.

Also with Lake below: 10, Treading, 19, Approach and 38, Opposition.

To draw a hexagram of your own, cast the I Ching with three coins.

I Ching Hexagram 60: Limitation

Upper trigram

☵

Water (Kan) above

Danger and depth.

FamilyMiddle son
ElementWater

Lower trigram

☱

Lake (Dui) below

Joy and openness.

FamilyYoungest daughter
ElementMetal

What the text says, in plain terms

The Judgement and the Image of hexagram 60

The Judgement

Limitation: boundaries give shape to life and bring success. But limits imposed too harshly cannot be sustained and should not be persisted in.

The Image

Water held within a lake, contained by its shores. The lesson is to set clear measures and to reflect on what is appropriate conduct.

A summary of meaning written for this site, not a translation — James Legge’s 1882 translation of the full text follows below. How the Judgement and the Image are read, and which translations to use →

Primary source

Hexagram 60 in James Legge’s translation

The Judgement
“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.”
The Image
“(The trigram representing) a lake, and above it that for water, form Kieh. The superior man, in accordance with this, constructs his (methods of) numbering and measurement, and discusses (points of) virtue and conduct.”

The lines

  1. Line 1 · bottom The first line, undivided, shows its subject not quitting the courtyard outside his door. There will be no error.
  2. Line 2 The second line, undivided, shows its subject not quitting the courtyard inside his gate. There will be evil.
  3. Line 3 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).
  4. Line 4 The fourth line, divided, shows its subject quietly and naturally (attentive to all) regulations. There will be progress and success.
  5. Line 5 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.
  6. Line 6 · top 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.
James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 197 — read the original text. Words in parentheses are Legge’s own: in his preface he explains that they supply what the original writer left unsaid. “Undivided” and “divided” are his terms for yang and yin lines, counted from the bottom. The Image comes from the second appendix of the book, the Treatise on the Symbolism.

Limitation for a decision

Set sensible limits — on time, money or commitments — and keep them. Avoid restrictions so strict that they will inevitably be broken.

I Ching 60 in love and relationships

Healthy boundaries make closeness possible. Too many rules make it feel like a cage.

Hexagram 60 at work

Budgets, scope and rules. Constraints help focus the work as long as they remain realistic.

The six lines of hexagram 60

Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yang yang yin yin yang yin — what each position means.

Hexagram 60: Water over Lake
Hexagram 60, Limitation, line by line from the bottomlineplace · answer1Line 1 · yang, solidin its placeanswered by 42Line 2 · yang, solidout of placeno answer from 53Line 3 · yin, brokenout of placeno answer from 64Line 4 · yin, brokenin its placeanswered by 15Line 5 · yang, solidin its placeno answer from 26Line 6 · yin, brokenin its placeno answer from 3LowerDuiLakeUpperKanWaterKing Wen sequence · read bottom to topastrohot.com

3 yang and 3 yin lines. Four of the six stand in their proper place, and the pair 1–4 answers.

What the two trigrams do to each other

Inner and outer

Lake below — joy and openness — is the private, inner side of hexagram 60.

Water above — danger and depth — is the world that side meets.

The five-element relation

Metal below generates Water above in the five-element cycle: the lower trigram feeds the upper. Energy moves upward and outward, which is the more productive of the two directions.

Read as a family

The middle son sits above and the youngest daughter below. A brother and a sister, the older one on top — siblings rather than parent and child, so the order is one of seniority, not authority.

Calculated from the lines

Hexagrams connected to hexagram 60

Hexagram 27, Nourishment

Nuclear hexagram

27 · Nourishment

What is happening beneath the surface.

Lines 2–4 give Zhen (Thunder) as the lower trigram, lines 3–5 give Gen (Mountain) as the upper.

Hexagram 56, The Wanderer

Opposite hexagram

56 · The Wanderer

The situation turned inside out.

Change all six lines and Water over Lake becomes Fire over Mountain.

Hexagram 59, Dispersion

Inverse hexagram

59 · Dispersion

The situation seen from the other side.

Turn the figure upside down and Water over Lake becomes Wind over Water.

None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.

The image

Water above, Lake below.

Water over Lake: danger and depth meeting joy and openness.

← 59 · All 64 · 61 →

56 The Wanderer 57 The Gentle 58 The Joyous 59 Dispersion 61 Inner Truth 62 Small Exceeding 63 After Completion

Sources

  1. James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 197

Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.

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