Hexagram 38 · Opposition
睽 · Kuí
The Judgment
Opposition. In small matters, good fortune. Fire moves upward and the lake seeps downward; two forces share one house yet pull apart. Nothing large can be accomplished while estrangement rules. Yet opposition is not only division: it is also the tension between complements. Work modestly, on the small shared ground, and the split can be bridged.
The Image
Above, fire; below, the lake: the image of Opposition. Thus the superior man remains himself amid all fellowship. He joins with others in what is common while preserving what is distinctly his own.
Interpretation
You are dealing with estrangement: people who ought to be aligned are misreading each other, and every attempt at a grand resolution seems to make things worse. The hexagram advises smallness. Do not call the summit meeting, do not draft the long explanatory message. Instead find one narrow point of genuine agreement and act there. Meet informally, in the side street rather than the throne room. Understand also that some opposition is not a problem to be solved but a difference to be respected; the fire and the lake are not going to become the same thing. What poisons the situation is suspicion, the tendency to see a wagon full of devils where there is only a tired, muddy traveller. Check your interpretations before you act on them. Very often what looked like hostility turns out, on closer approach, to be someone as wary and misinformed as you were.
Love
A phase of crossed wires where you and the other person keep reading each other wrongly. Assume better intentions than you feel, ask instead of concluding, and make small warm gestures rather than demanding a full reckoning. The rift closes gradually, not in one conversation.
Career
Colleagues or factions are pulling in different directions and open confrontation will entrench them. Build agreement quietly, one person at a time, on the narrow issues where interests genuinely overlap. Keep your own standards intact without insisting that everyone adopt them.
Advice
Look again before you take offence, and rebuild through small shared actions rather than grand explanations.
Line by line
Regret disappears. If you lose your horse, do not chase it; it returns of its own accord. When you meet unpleasant people, guard against mistakes rather than avoiding them. What has drifted away will come back if you do not grab at it.
One meets his lord in a narrow street: no blame. The formal channels are closed, so the meeting happens informally and by chance. Take the sideways opportunity without embarrassment; there is nothing improper in an unplanned approach when the front door is shut.
One sees the wagon dragged back and the oxen halted, the driver's hair shorn and nose cut off. Humiliation and obstruction come from every side at the start. There is no good beginning here, but there is a good end.
Isolated by opposition, one meets a like-minded person and they associate in good faith. Even in estrangement an ally appears. The situation stays dangerous, so proceed carefully, but genuine trust between two people is enough to keep you blameless.
Regret disappears. The companion bites through the wrapping that separates you. When someone close makes the effort to break through the barrier, go to meet them; joining them now could not possibly be a mistake.
Isolated, one sees the other as a pig covered in filth, a wagon full of devils, and draws the bow. Then the bow is laid aside: it is no robber but a suitor. Rain falls, the tension clears, good fortune.