Regulations

Regulations is the principle at the heart of Hexagram 60, where rules are presented as necessary instruments of government but not as ends in themselves. The hexagram promises progress and attainment under regulation, then sets a limit on that promise: rules that are severe and difficult cannot last. Its sequence tests restraint at several scales, from an individual’s decision to remain at home to a ruler’s authority over public conduct, and makes proportion—not severity alone—the measure of sound governance.

Meaning and Political Use

The term originally referred to the joints of bamboo. It was also applied to the joints of the human frame and to divisions of the solar and other yearly cycles. The commentary draws these usages together through the idea of regular division: a boundary or interval makes something ordered, and the governing sense of the hexagram is the regulation and restraint enacted by government to guide and control the people.

The hexagram’s promise of success is explained partly through the balanced arrangement of its divided and undivided lines and the presence of undivided lines in the central second and fifth positions. Yet structural balance does not license inflexible administration. The concluding principle of the hexagram is that regulations must be adapted to circumstances rather than made excessively strict. Political authority is presented as legitimate when it establishes order without demanding a uniform or unbearable degree of restraint.

Restraint, Timing, and Failure to Act

The first two lines set out a paired warning about staying within the household boundary. In the first, the subject does not leave the courtyard outside the door and incurs no error. Although the line’s subject is strong and correctly placed, a stronger line checks him, while his correlate belongs to a dangerous position; in this situation, remaining still is the wise course. The commentary specifies that the courtyard outside the inner door and the courtyard inside the outer gate are the same space, and cites the Daily Lecture’s practical reading: an officer should not take office rashly but should judge his measures cautiously.

The second line reverses the evaluation. Its subject remains inside the courtyard when he ought to be acting, and the result is evil. The contrast is not between restraint and action as absolute goods: both lines describe staying within the household, but circumstances make one prudent and the other a failure of duty. Regulations require judgment about when to hold back and when to proceed.

The third line sharpens the cost of resisting restraint. It is weak where strength is called for, neither central nor correctly placed, and has no proper correlate. Its subject refuses to accept the yoke of regulations and recognizes the mistake only too late. The image makes self-restraint a condition of timely understanding: the consequence of refusing every limit is not freedom from regulation, but belated discovery of the error.

Authority and Proportion

The fourth line is weak in the appropriate place, and its subject respects the authority of the strong ruler in the fifth. The commentary therefore gives this line favorable symbolism and an auspice. Regulation is not depicted only as an individual burden; it also depends on a subordinate’s recognition of legitimate authority and a ruler whose position can give direction to the whole system.

In the fifth line, the strong ruler is correctly placed and regulates himself, despite having no correlate. As lord of the hexagram, his influence is beneficially felt throughout it. Self-regulation thus precedes effective authority over others: the ruler’s beneficial reach is linked not to the multiplication of commands but to discipline exercised upon himself.

At the top, the subject enacts regulations that are severe and difficult. Even firmness and correctness cannot prevent an evil outcome, because the rules exceed what can be sustained. The line allows that the resulting cause for repentance will eventually disappear, but it does not erase the failure or make severity an effective policy. The accompanying commentary distinguishes this excess from being too easy or remiss: harshness is a fault, though one that can be remedied.

The Hexagram’s Governing Limit

Across the lines, the subject of Regulations must learn to distinguish a timely pause from passivity, principled limits from defiance, and public authority from overreach. The same act of staying put can be prudent or harmful; the same commitment to firm rules can support order or produce an unsustainable burden. By making self-command, circumstances, and durability part of its judgment, the hexagram treats regulation as a practical art rather than a demand for maximal restraint.

Its central qualification is therefore inseparable from its promise of progress. Rules can guide and control the people, but their legitimacy and effectiveness depend on proportion. The severe regulations of the final line offer a compact counterexample to the assumption that stricter government is necessarily stronger government: when restraint is pushed beyond what circumstances can bear, it turns against the order it was meant to secure.