شش خطی 12
ناهماهنگی، رکود، ایستایی، انسداد (پی Pi)

Obstruction means blockage. As for the qualities of the hexagram, inside is earth , submissive, and outside is heaven , strong: Submitting to one’s desires, outwardly acting adamant, negative energy is in charge, while positive energy retreats; because strength and receptivity are separated, it is called obstruction.

This hexagram represents yin and yang not joining; it follows on the previous hexagram treading. Treading is promoting strength with harmony and joyfulness, causing yin and yang to join, so strength and receptivity are united. In general, when yin and yang do not combine, true yin changes into false yin and true yang changes into false yang; the primordial is lost and false energy enters; false energy enters and true energy recedes. That is why “obstruction’s denial of humanity does not make the superior person’s rectitude beneficial.” “Denial of humanity” is false energy, the “superior person” is true energy. When the primordial has not been injured and true yang is within, the single mass of true energy is the “superior person.” When the primordial has been lost, and the true yang is scattered externally, whatever the body has is false energy.

To follow that conditioned yin, indulging in emotions and giving free rein to desires, without any limit, is “denying humanity.” That denying humanity is not beneficial to the superior person means that false energy is not beneficial to true energy. At this time the practitioner of the Tao should get rid of intellectualism and gather the energy and spirit within to preserve true yang. Particularly at this disadvantageous time, just when the great goes and the small comes, when negative energy does things, if one does not know how to forestall danger, one will increasingly produce obstruction, and it will be very disadvantageous.

Obstruction is blockage. Above is heaven , below is earth ; the energy of earth rises up from below, the energy of heaven descends from above—the energies of heaven and earth, the celestial and the mundane, do not mix, and myriad things are stifled. This is the image of obstruction.

What superior people see in this is that heaven and earth, yin and yang, do not mix, myriad things are inert, and when the celestial and the earthly in the human being do not commune, natural reality is damaged. Therefore they are reserved and reclusive at the appropriate times, sparing with their powers and qualities, thus avoiding trouble, not susceptible to elevation by emolument.

To be parsimonious with power means to banish intellectualism, to conceal one's illumination and nurture it in secret, borrowing the temporal to preserve the primordial, not letting any external influences adulterate natural reality. This is because once people get mixed up in acquired conditioning, the false comes and the real departs; the mind is seduced by things, the nature is deranged and life is destabilized. No obstruction is more of a hindrance than this, no trouble is more of a problem than this. If one does not know to escape quickly, as soon as there is any ambition for honor or material gain, or any emotional feeling about objects of sense, this will cause even more obstruction—how can one then avoid injurious trouble? Not susceptible to being elevated to a high post in the world, one is not moved by glory or emolument, much less by petty gains.

The words "parsimonious with power" are very pregnant, involving many things and most detailed effort. Whatever talent or knowledge one has, one should hide it and be stolid as a monumental rampart, forgetting others and self, having power yet not being conscious of it. If one is conscious of one's power, that is not being parsimonious. Precisely because one is not conscious of one's power one cannot be elevated by emolument. If emolument cannot elevate one, the trouble is no longer there, and the obstruction disappears of itself. Thus though the earthly and the celestial do not commune at first, they will inevitably join in the end; so the effect of avoiding trouble by being parsimonious with power is not small.