水山蹇 & decision

Read 水山蹇 (Obstruction) as a mirror, not an answer key. It does not foretell how a decision turns out; it offers a set of angles for looking at where you actually stand right now.

The judgment reads "利西南，不利东北". 水山蹇 is built from water above (坎) over a mountain below (艮) — 山上有水，蹇；君子以反身修德. In everyday terms it sketches a kind of situational "weather" rather than a verdict. The questions below are drawn straight from that imagery — they are for you to answer, about a decision.

Turn the imagery of 水山蹇 into questions you ask yourself

1. 1The upper trigram of 水山蹇 is water, the lower is a mountain. In your decision right now, which part is like the "water" above — outward-facing, responding to the world? And which is like the "a mountain" below — your quieter, underlying ground?
2. 2If the judgment "利西南，不利东北" were describing the thing you are weighing, which word would you reach for first, and why that one?
3. 3水山蹇 describes the "timing" of a situation. Is the choice in front of you one to move with — or one to pause on until you can see it clearly?
4. 4Read 水山蹇's line 3 as the "stepping-over" line. Looking back from three months out, would you want this decision to have rested on ground as steady as the a mountain below — or to have been a rush to resolve it?
5. 5Is there one small thing in this choice you keep avoiding — like the water standing above and outside in 水山蹇, the part you will have to answer to sooner or later?

水山蹇 gives you an angle on a decision, not a should-or-shouldn't. The real work is to carry these questions back into your own situation — the answer is in you, not in the hexagram. The classical line text above is quoted in Chinese; the real work sits in the everyday choices only you can see.

Yarrow Yi casts hexagrams deterministically (by time, by hand, or by coin) and treats the I Ching as a tool for self-awareness — not for predicting fortune.