Standstill · Tian Di Pi
Standstill — heaven and earth apart, and the good man in retreat.
The traditional reading
Hexagram 12 is the closed season — heaven and earth no longer speaking, and petty forces in the saddle. This is not the time for heroics: withdraw, preserve your integrity, and keep your inner standards high while the outer world stalls. The standstill does not last forever.
Structure of the hexagram
- Lower trigram: Earth (Kun) · Earth
- Upper trigram: Heaven (Qian) · Metal
- House: Heaven (Qian) · Metal
- Text in the original Chinese: 天地否