11. Peace
Peace is hexagram 11 of the 64 in the I Ching, also known as the Book of Changes (in Chinese Tài, 泰).
When the high and the low find each other again, the world starts to breathe.
Core image
This hexagram describes a state of through-flow. What sits above descends; what lives below rises. Force and receptivity do not close themselves off from each other, but find traffic. Peace here is no resting plate, but a living order.
Tension
A favorable time itself breeds carelessness. When things flow, one quickly assumes that order is self-evident. But peace does not keep itself. The moment relations are no longer tended, the form stays standing a while as the traffic thins.
Distortion
Peace distorts when prosperity grows complacent. Then the forms stay intact a while longer, but the exchange is already impoverishing. One lives in the peace but no longer maintains it.
Stance
Stay grateful, precise, and not triumphant. Tend the passages that make this openness possible. Let what is high come down and what is low rise. Where the traffic stalls, peace stops being a living form.
Closing line
True harmony is not smooth, but permeable.
Plain-language entrances.
Derived addresses for this hexagram. They help search and recognition, but do not change the source meaning.
hexagram 11 vrede en doorstroming
Hexagram 11 gaat over vrede en doorstroming: wanneer krachten elkaar tijdelijk ondersteunen en openen.
Changing lines of hexagram 11
- Line 1. At the base, peace shows itself in small, healthy ties. When the roots are well entangled, more comes up with you than you could have carried alone. Here order begins underground.
- Line 2. This line brings generosity into the center. Not everything has to be made fitting first in order to be taken in. Great order arises here from inner breadth, not from narrow purity.
- Line 3. Even in a favorable time the world chafes. This line recalls that alternation is no contradiction of peace, but its condition. Whoever tolerates only the rising line understands nothing of order.
- Line 4. At this point it becomes visible who truly takes part in the flow and who merely rides along. Openness here asks for genuineness, not decorum. What wants to seem light but carries nothing is found out.
- Line 5. Here peace stands at its most dignified point. There is authority without distance and connection without loss of form. Do not possess this state; serve it.
- Line 6. When peace comes to completion, its vulnerability also begins. Whoever thinks this is the final stop invites the turn. This line asks for sobriety at the summit.
Related hexagrams
Frequently asked questions about hexagram 11
What does hexagram 11, Peace, mean in the I Ching?
When the high and the low find each other again, the world starts to breathe. This hexagram describes a state of through-flow. What sits above descends; what lives below rises. Force and receptivity do not close themselves off from each other, but find traffic. Peace here is no resting plate, but a living order.
What does hexagram 11 (Peace) ask of you?
A favorable time itself breeds carelessness. When things flow, one quickly assumes that order is self-evident. But peace does not keep itself. The moment relations are no longer tended, the form stays standing a while as the traffic thins.
Read what is in motion in your situation.
A hexagram only takes on meaning in relation to your own question. Ask one and read what appears.