Hexagram 39 of 64 · King Wen sequence

Obstruction

蹇 · jiǎn

Above: Water
Below: Mountain

Water above the mountain: the lame struggle forward on high ground — obstruction met by turning southwest, toward what is easy and substantive.

Water on a mountain: forward is a cliff, and every step is laboured. Obstruction is the hexagram of the hard season on hard terrain — and its counsel is counterintuitive: turn southwest, toward the easy and the substantive, and stop battering the northeast cliff.

The deeper instruction is to meet the great man — find the experienced support — rather than prove your stamina alone. When the terrain itself is the obstacle, the answer is not more effort; it is better ground, better company, and the humility to use both.

Questions this hexagram asks

Which direction is my northeast cliff — and what is my southwest?
Whose help would change the terrain rather than the pace?
What am I proving by struggling alone that no one asked me to prove?

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