ichingUpdated March 28, 2026

I Ching Hexagram 63 — After Completion (Ji Ji): Success Is Not the End

Hexagram 63 (Ji Ji) represents the rare moment of perfect order where every line sits in its correct position. Yet this perfection is inherently unstable. Explore its trigram analysis, nuclear hexagram, King Wen judgment, Confucian commentary, and the profound warning that peak success demands peak vigilance.

Trigram Analysis: Water Above Fire

Hexagram 63 is composed of Kan (Water) above Li (Fire), creating the image of a pot of water placed over a fire. This is a perfectly functional arrangement: the fire heats the water, and the water contains the fire's energy for useful purpose. Unlike the reverse arrangement (Hexagram 64, Fire above Water, where the two elements separate), here the two forces are in productive relationship. The water descends toward the fire, the fire rises toward the water, and they meet in functional union. What makes this hexagram structurally extraordinary is the line arrangement. Reading from bottom to top: yang, yin, yang, yin, yang, yin. Every yang line (lines 1, 3, 5) occupies a yang position (odd positions), and every yin line (lines 2, 4, 6) occupies a yin position (even positions). This is the definition of perfect order in I Ching structural analysis. No other hexagram achieves this complete positional correctness. Wilhelm/Baynes describe this as "the only condition of complete equilibrium" in the I Ching, but immediately note that equilibrium is not the same as stability. A system in perfect equilibrium has reached its maximum order, which means the only direction available is toward less order. A ball at the top of a hill is in equilibrium, but any movement carries it downward. This is the existential condition of Hexagram 63: everything is right, and therefore everything is at risk.

Alfred Huang provides additional structural analysis by noting that the Water-above-Fire arrangement creates mutual benefit: "Water moderates fire's tendency to flare destructively, while fire warms water and gives it purpose. This is the model of all productive complementary relationships: each partner restrains the other's excess while activating the other's potential." However, this functional arrangement is also precarious. If the fire grows too hot, the water boils away. If the water is too heavy, it extinguishes the fire. The balance that makes the system work is the same quality that makes it vulnerable. Hilary Barrett connects this to the experience of peak performance in any domain: "The athlete at the top of their game, the company at peak profitability, the relationship in its most harmonious phase, all know at some level that this perfect balance cannot hold forever. Hexagram 63 names this knowledge and transforms it from anxiety into wisdom."

Why is the Water-over-Fire arrangement considered "complete" while Fire-over-Water is not?

In the physical world, water placed over fire achieves its purpose: the water boils, generating steam, heat, and the capacity for cooking. Fire placed over water has no functional relationship; the two elements move apart without interaction. Water naturally descends toward fire, and fire naturally rises toward water, so the Hexagram 63 arrangement allows them to meet. In Hexagram 64, they move apart. Completion means functional relationship; incompletion means separation despite proximity. This physical metaphor extends to every domain: completion is the state where complementary forces are actually working together.

What does the perfect line arrangement tell us about the hexagram?

The perfect positional arrangement (every line in its "correct" place) creates maximum structural order, which paradoxically creates maximum vulnerability to change. In a system where nothing is out of place, any change necessarily creates disorder. If one yang line shifts to yin or vice versa, the perfection is broken. This structural insight maps onto real-world systems: a company with every role perfectly filled is one resignation away from imperfection. A relationship where every need is met is one change of circumstance away from imbalance. Understanding this fragility is the hexagram's gift.

How does the nuclear hexagram (64, Before Completion) relate to the primary hexagram?

Hexagram 63's nuclear hexagram is Hexagram 64, and Hexagram 64's nuclear hexagram is Hexagram 63. They contain each other at the deepest structural level, creating an infinite cycle of completion and incompletion. This mathematical relationship is the I Ching's most elegant expression of the yin-yang principle: within every completion lies the beginning of something incomplete, and within every incompletion lies the structure of eventual completion. The two hexagrams are not sequential but simultaneous; both states exist within each other at all times.

King Wen Judgment and Duke of Zhou Line Texts

King Wen's judgment on Hexagram 63 reads: "After Completion. Success in small matters. Perseverance furthers. At the beginning good fortune, at the end disorder." This judgment is notable for its restraint. A hexagram of perfect structural order receives a judgment of qualified success. "Small matters" succeed; grand matters are not addressed. Perseverance "furthers" but is not sufficient alone. Good fortune begins but disorder follows. Every phrase is both an acknowledgment and a warning. The Duke of Zhou's line texts follow the trajectory of a completed state from its first moments of stability to its eventual dissolution. Line 1: "He brakes his wheels. He gets his tail in the water. No blame." A fox crossing a frozen stream brakes at the start and gets only its tail wet. Applied to a completed situation, this means applying caution at the very beginning of success. Slowing down when you have just achieved your goal prevents the momentum of ambition from carrying you past the point of balance. Line 2: "The woman loses the curtain of her carriage. Do not run after it. On the seventh day you will get it." Something of value is temporarily lost, but pursuing it anxiously would be counterproductive. Trust that natural processes will restore what was lost. In a completed situation, small things will go wrong; the wise response is patience rather than panic. Line 3: "The Illustrious Ancestor disciplines the Devil's Country. After three years he conquers it. Inferior people must not be employed." Even within a completed state, difficult challenges require sustained effort and careful choice of personnel. The reference to the Illustrious Ancestor (a Shang dynasty emperor who launched a punitive expedition) suggests that maintaining order sometimes requires decisive action against sources of disorder.

Line 4: "The finest clothes turn to rags. Be careful all day long." This line is the hexagram's sharpest warning about the deterioration that follows completion. Beautiful garments naturally wear out with use. Prosperous conditions naturally degrade without maintenance. The counsel to "be careful all day long" means maintaining vigilance precisely when comfort would suggest relaxation. Line 5: "The neighbor in the east who slaughters an ox does not attain as much real happiness as the neighbor in the west with his small offering." The ruler line teaches that after completion, sincere modesty outperforms elaborate display. The neighbor who makes a small, heartfelt offering receives more genuine blessing than the one who slaughters an ox for show. Applied to completed situations, this means that simple, sincere maintenance of what you have achieved matters more than dramatic gestures of celebration or expansion. Line 6: "He gets his head in the water. Danger." The final line returns to the fox crossing the stream. Where Line 1's fox got its tail wet at the beginning, Line 6's fox gets its head wet at the end. The danger at the conclusion is greater than at the start because complacency has replaced caution. Wilhelm/Baynes note that "the fox who has almost completed the crossing of a frozen stream but then carelessly allows his head to dip into the water symbolizes the failure that comes from relaxing vigilance at the moment success seems assured."

Why does the judgment say "success in small matters" rather than simply "success"?

The qualification to "small matters" serves two purposes. First, it indicates that the time for grand achievement has passed; the grand work is complete and now the focus must shift to maintenance and detail. Second, it warns against using the completed state as a launching pad for ambitious new ventures. After completion, the wise course is to tend what exists rather than to build more. Organizations that use peak success as the springboard for aggressive expansion often discover that they have overextended at the worst possible moment. Small, careful improvements succeed where grand new ambitions would destabilize what has been achieved.

What is the significance of the fox imagery in Lines 1 and 6?

The fox crossing a frozen stream is one of the I Ching's most memorable images. The fox must cross carefully because its weight could break the ice at any point. In Line 1, the fox brakes cautiously at the start and suffers only minor inconvenience (wet tail). In Line 6, the fox has almost finished crossing but carelessly dips its head into the water at the very end. The progression teaches that the danger of a completed situation is greatest at the end, not the beginning. Success breeds the complacency that produces failure. The image has been cited by Chinese strategists for millennia as the definitive teaching on the danger of premature relaxation.

How should I interpret Line 5 about the eastern and western neighbors?

Line 5 teaches that the quality of sincerity matters more than the scale of offering. The eastern neighbor makes an elaborate sacrifice (slaughtering an ox) but with a spirit of display. The western neighbor makes a humble offering but with genuine devotion. After completion, the temptation is to celebrate grandly, to display success ostentatiously, to expand beyond what the situation requires. Line 5 says: do less with more sincerity. The simple act of maintaining your achievement with quiet devotion produces more genuine satisfaction and lasting good fortune than any elaborate celebration of success.

Confucian Commentary and the Philosophy of Completion

The Confucian commentaries on Hexagram 63 focus on the profound philosophical implications of a hexagram that represents perfect order while warning of its impermanence. The Tuanzhuan (Commentary on the Judgment) states: "After Completion: success. The firm and the yielding are correctly distributed. Small matters succeed because the yielding holds the central position." The "yielding in the central position" refers to the yin line in position 2 (the center of the lower trigram), which represents the modest, receptive quality needed to maintain rather than build. Maintenance requires different virtues than creation, and Hexagram 63's commentary identifies these maintenance virtues as yin: attention to detail, patience, modesty, and responsiveness to small changes. The Xiangzhuan (Commentary on the Image) states: "Water over fire: the image of After Completion. Thus the superior person takes thought of misfortune and arms himself against it in advance." This is among the most practically useful passages in the entire I Ching commentary. The wise person, at the moment of success, immediately thinks about what could go wrong and takes preventive measures. This is not pessimism but prudence: the fire under the water could die out, the water could boil away, external forces could disrupt the balance. Anticipating these possibilities and preparing for them is the highest art of maintaining completion.

The Xici (Great Commentary) uses the relationship between Hexagrams 63 and 64 to illustrate one of the I Ching's most fundamental philosophical principles: "The I Ching has no final hexagram because change has no final state." The placement of completion before incompletion at the end of the King Wen sequence is the structural embodiment of this principle. Confucian scholars debated for centuries whether this arrangement was King Wen's conscious philosophical choice or an emergent property of the mathematical structure. Most concluded it was both: the mathematical truth that completion naturally transitions to incompletion is simultaneously a physical law, a philosophical insight, and a practical warning. Wilhelm/Baynes note that the Chinese concept of zhongyong (the Doctrine of the Mean), which counsels moderation in all things, finds its clearest I Ching expression in Hexagram 63: "Do not let success intoxicate you. Do not let completion lull you into thinking you have finished."

How does Confucian commentary distinguish between achievement and completion?

Confucian commentary treats achievement as a dynamic process and completion as a static state, and warns that confusing the two leads to decline. Achievement requires ongoing effort, adaptation, and growth. Completion is the momentary peak when everything aligns, which, if mistaken for a permanent condition, becomes the starting point of decay. The superior person celebrates achievement (the process) while remaining wary of completion (the state) because the state naturally invites the complacency that undermines the process. This distinction shaped Chinese governance philosophy: the best rulers never considered their work complete.

What does "arming yourself against misfortune" look like in practice?

The Image commentary's counsel to "take thought of misfortune and arm yourself against it" translates into several practical strategies: maintain financial reserves during prosperity, strengthen key relationships when things are going well, diversify income sources at peak earning, document systems and processes while institutional memory is strong, and address small problems immediately before they compound. In personal life, it means having difficult conversations while the relationship is strong, maintaining health practices during periods of vitality, and building community connections before you need crisis support.

Why does the commentary emphasize yin virtues for maintaining completion?

Creation requires yang virtues: initiative, boldness, vision, and force. Maintenance requires yin virtues: attention, patience, responsiveness, and modesty. Most failures of completed systems occur because leaders continue applying yang virtues (expansion, bold action, new initiatives) when the situation calls for yin virtues (careful monitoring, incremental adjustment, detailed maintenance). Hexagram 63's commentary identifies this mismatch as the primary cause of "disorder at the end." The person who built the house with creative energy must switch to caretaker energy to preserve it.

After Completion in Relationships and Emotional Life

When Hexagram 63 appears in a relationship reading, it indicates that the relationship has achieved a state of genuine harmony, mutual understanding, and functional balance. Both partners are in their proper roles, communication flows naturally, and the relationship is serving both individuals well. This is a moment to appreciate and celebrate. However, the hexagram immediately warns that this harmonious state requires active maintenance to preserve. The most common relationship failure pattern corresponds exactly to Hexagram 63's trajectory: a couple achieves genuine harmony, assumes the harmony is self-sustaining, gradually reduces the effort and attention that created the harmony, and wakes up one day to find that the relationship has deteriorated into the disorder the hexagram predicted. The "finest clothes turning to rags" of Line 4 perfectly describes the relationship that was once beautiful but has been worn thin by neglect. For couples in a Hexagram 63 phase, the guidance is specific: do not take your partner for granted. Continue the practices that built your harmony: regular communication, quality time, expressions of appreciation, physical affection, shared experiences, and honest conversation about needs and feelings. These are the "small matters" that the judgment says will succeed. The grand gesture of renewed commitment matters less than the daily small gestures that maintain connection.

Hilary Barrett reads Hexagram 63 in relationship contexts as a teaching about the difference between static and dynamic harmony: "Static harmony is a picture on the wall: beautiful but frozen and slowly fading. Dynamic harmony is a dance: beautiful because both partners are constantly adjusting their movements in response to each other. Hexagram 63 counsels the dance, not the picture." The hexagram's insistence on vigilance translates to emotional attentiveness: noticing when your partner is stressed before they tell you, sensing shifts in mood, responding to bids for connection rather than ignoring them. Alfred Huang adds that the fox imagery applies directly to long-term relationships: "Many couples who have navigated decades together successfully make their most serious mistakes in the final phase, when complacency has replaced attentiveness. The fox gets its head wet at the end of the crossing, not the beginning."

Does Hexagram 63 mean my relationship has peaked?

Hexagram 63 indicates that your relationship has achieved a state of genuine order and harmony, which is an accomplishment worth celebrating. Whether this represents a peak depends on your response. If you treat it as a destination and stop investing in the relationship, yes, it becomes a peak followed by decline. If you treat it as a dynamic state requiring ongoing attention, the harmony can be maintained and deepened over time. The hexagram warns against the first response and counsels the second.

What are the "small matters" that maintain relationship harmony?

The "small matters" that Hexagram 63 says will succeed are the daily micro-interactions that sustain connection: saying "good morning" with genuine warmth, asking about your partner's day and listening to the answer, expressing gratitude for specific things they do, initiating physical affection, sharing a meal together without screens, remembering and honoring commitments, and responding to emotional bids with presence rather than distraction. Research by relationship scientist John Gottman confirms this ancient wisdom: relationships succeed or fail based on the accumulation of small positive interactions, not on grand gestures.

Career, Business, and the Challenges of Sustained Success

In career and business readings, Hexagram 63 signals that a major professional achievement or organizational milestone has been reached. A project has been completed successfully, a business has achieved profitability, a career goal has been attained, or an organization has reached its operational peak. The hexagram validates this achievement while immediately shifting attention to the challenges of sustaining it. The business world is filled with examples of Hexagram 63's warning manifested. Companies that reach market dominance and then decline because they stop innovating. Executives who achieve the top position and then coast on past accomplishments. Teams that deliver a successful product and then lose their edge because the urgency that drove excellence has dissipated. In each case, the pattern is identical: completion was treated as a destination rather than a transition, and the complacency that followed eroded what had been achieved. For professionals who receive Hexagram 63, the guidance is threefold. First, celebrate and acknowledge your achievement; genuine accomplishment deserves recognition. Second, immediately shift your focus from building to maintaining. The skills that created success (vision, initiative, risk-taking) must now be complemented by the skills that preserve success (monitoring, adjusting, detail-management). Third, begin preparing for the next cycle of development by identifying emerging challenges and opportunities while you still have the resources and stability to address them proactively.

Alfred Huang notes that Hexagram 63's business wisdom aligns with what modern management theorists call the "success trap": the tendency of successful organizations to continue doing what made them successful long after conditions have changed, eventually making their past success the cause of their future failure. The hexagram's counsel to focus on "small matters" during completion is the antidote to this trap: stay attentive to small changes in the market, technology, customer preferences, and competitive landscape that signal the need for adaptation. Hilary Barrett adds that the hexagram has specific relevance for organizational leaders transitioning from a growth phase to a maintenance phase: "The founder who built the company must either learn the very different skills of maintaining it or hand the reins to someone who already possesses those skills. Hexagram 63 is the pivot point where this decision becomes necessary."

Should I start a new project after receiving Hexagram 63?

Hexagram 63 explicitly advises focusing on "small matters" rather than new grand undertakings. This does not mean you should never start anything new, but it means the current moment favors consolidation over expansion. Tend to what you have achieved. Shore up weaknesses. Build reserves. When you do begin new initiatives, start small and test carefully rather than launching boldly. The hexagram's trajectory from good fortune to disorder warns that new ambitious ventures launched at the peak of completion often overextend the resources needed to maintain existing success.

What does the "Illustrious Ancestor" of Line 3 mean for business?

Line 3's reference to a three-year military campaign against the "Devil's Country" translates to the sustained effort required to address serious challenges within a successful organization. Even at peak performance, difficult problems exist: underperforming divisions, toxic team dynamics, technical debt, or competitive threats. The line counsels addressing these challenges with the sustained, disciplined effort of a military campaign rather than ignoring them in the glow of overall success. The warning against employing "inferior people" means that critical challenges require your best people, not mediocre performers assigned because the task seems beneath top talent's attention.

How do I prevent the "disorder at the end" in my business?

Preventing the predicted disorder requires shifting from yang (creative, expansive) leadership to yin (maintenance, responsive) leadership. Establish rigorous monitoring systems that detect small problems before they compound. Invest in your team's development and wellbeing during prosperity rather than taking them for granted. Maintain the relationships with customers, partners, and stakeholders that created your success. Build financial reserves for the inevitable downturn. Most importantly, maintain the organizational culture and values that drove your achievement. When culture erodes, everything else follows.

Modern Application and Contemplative Practice

Applying Hexagram 63 in modern life requires developing the capacity to be simultaneously grateful for what you have achieved and alert to the forces that will eventually change it. This is not anxiety but wisdom: the recognition that all conditions are temporary and that the appropriate response to favorable conditions is not complacency but increased attentiveness. Contemplative practice with Hexagram 63 involves a meditation on impermanence and gratitude. Sit quietly and bring to mind something in your life that is currently going well: a relationship, a career situation, your health, a creative project. Hold it in awareness with genuine appreciation. Then gently acknowledge that this condition, like all conditions, will eventually change. Feel both the gratitude and the impermanence simultaneously, without letting either dissolve the other. This practice develops the psychological state the hexagram recommends: appreciation without attachment, enjoyment without complacency, and vigilance without anxiety. In daily life, Hexagram 63 manifests as the principle of preventive maintenance applied to every domain: the relationship check-in when things are going well, the financial review during prosperity, the health check-up when you feel fine, the organizational audit at peak performance. The hexagram teaches that the best time to address potential problems is when you have the resources, energy, and stability to handle them effectively rather than waiting until crisis forces your hand. The superior person who "takes thought of misfortune and arms himself against it in advance" is not pessimistic but strategic.

Hilary Barrett suggests that Hexagram 63's deepest modern application concerns our relationship with achievement culture: "In a world that celebrates the moment of achievement and then immediately demands the next achievement, Hexagram 63 counsels the unfashionable art of staying with what you have accomplished. Learning to maintain is as important as learning to create, and far less valued in modern culture." Alfred Huang adds that the hexagram has particular relevance for the modern experience of "arrival fallacy," the psychological phenomenon where achieving a long-desired goal fails to produce the expected lasting satisfaction: "Hexagram 63 explains why arrival disappoints: completion is not a resting place but a transition point. The satisfaction you sought from achievement can only be found in the ongoing practice of mindful maintenance and grateful attention to the present moment."

How do I practice the vigilance Hexagram 63 recommends without becoming anxious?

The difference between vigilance and anxiety lies in the quality of attention. Anxiety is fear-based, imagining disasters and dreading the future. Vigilance is wisdom-based, calmly observing the present for early signs of change and responding appropriately. Practice vigilance by scheduling regular review periods (weekly for personal life, monthly for career, quarterly for finances) where you assess your situation with clear eyes, identify any emerging concerns, and take modest preventive action. Between reviews, enjoy your achievements fully. This structured approach channels the hexagram's warning into productive action rather than chronic worry.

What is the connection between Hexagram 63 and Buddhist impermanence?

Hexagram 63's teaching that perfect completion inevitably transitions to disorder closely parallels the Buddhist doctrine of anicca (impermanence): all conditioned things are transient. Both traditions teach that suffering arises not from change itself but from the attachment to conditions we want to preserve and the resistance to conditions we want to avoid. Hexagram 63 adds a practical dimension: rather than merely accepting impermanence philosophically, it counsels specific actions (small matters, perseverance, thoughtful preparation) that honor the reality of change while extending the duration of favorable conditions.

How does Hexagram 63 apply to the end of a life chapter?

When a major life chapter reaches completion, whether through retirement, children leaving home, concluding a long project, or achieving a lifelong goal, Hexagram 63 offers both validation and guidance. Validate: what you have accomplished is real and worthy of honor. Guide: this completion is not an ending but a transition. The "disorder at the end" need not be catastrophic; it can be the creative messiness of a new chapter beginning. The wisdom is to release attachment to the completed chapter gracefully while directing your attention toward the emerging new phase with the same sincerity and persistence that characterized your achievement.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Hexagram 63 After Completion mean?

Hexagram 63 (Ji Ji, After Completion) represents the unique moment when everything has come to perfect order. It is composed of Water (Kan) above Fire (Li), with every yang line in a yang position and every yin line in a yin position, the only hexagram in the I Ching where all six lines are "correctly" placed. The judgment reads: "After Completion. Success in small matters. Perseverance furthers. At the beginning good fortune, at the end disorder." This extraordinary hexagram teaches the paradox of completion: the moment of greatest order contains the seeds of its own dissolution, and peak success demands peak vigilance.

Why is Hexagram 63 not the last hexagram in the I Ching?

The placement of After Completion as the second-to-last hexagram (followed by Hexagram 64, Before Completion) is one of the I Ching's most profound structural teachings. If the I Ching ended with completion, it would imply that a final, permanent state of order is achievable. By placing Before Completion after After Completion, the text teaches that every ending is simultaneously a new beginning, that completion naturally gives way to a new cycle of development. Wilhelm/Baynes note that this arrangement "reflects the cyclical view of time that is fundamental to Chinese philosophy." Nothing is ever truly finished; every completion is a transition.

What is the nuclear hexagram of Hexagram 63?

The nuclear hexagram of Hexagram 63 is Hexagram 64, Before Completion (Wei Ji), formed by Water (lines 2-3-4) below Fire (lines 3-4-5). This is remarkable: hidden within the state of perfect completion is the state of incompletion. The nuclear hexagram reveals that even at the moment of greatest order, the seeds of the next cycle of disorder and development are already present at the deepest structural level. Alfred Huang notes that this nuclear relationship between Hexagrams 63 and 64 is the I Ching's mathematical expression of the yin-yang principle that each extreme contains the seed of its opposite.

What does "success in small matters" mean?

The judgment's qualification that success applies to "small matters" is a crucial limitation. After Completion is not the time for grand new undertakings but for careful attention to detail. The great work has been done; now the challenge is maintenance, fine-tuning, and preventing the small oversights that erode what has been achieved. Wilhelm/Baynes interpret this as counsel to focus on the quality of execution rather than the ambition of vision. The house has been built; now keep it in good repair. The relationship has been established; now attend to the daily acts of kindness that sustain it.

What does "at the beginning good fortune, at the end disorder" mean?

This phrase is the hexagram's central warning. The state of completion begins in good fortune because everything is properly ordered. But over time, without active maintenance, order naturally deteriorates into disorder. The phrase describes the universal trajectory of completed systems: the new business that thrives initially but stagnates, the marriage that begins blissfully but gradually erodes, the empire that peaks and then declines. Hexagram 63 teaches that this trajectory is natural but not inevitable; conscious attention and continued effort can extend the period of good fortune, though they cannot make it permanent.

How does Hexagram 63 apply to completed projects or achieved goals?

When you receive Hexagram 63 after achieving a goal or completing a project, the hexagram validates your achievement while immediately redirecting your attention to what comes next. Celebrate your success, but do not rest on it. Examine the systems you built for small weaknesses that could grow into large problems. Thank and maintain the relationships that supported your achievement. Begin planning your response to the inevitable changes that will challenge what you have built. The hexagram's wisdom is that completion is a transition point, not a destination.

What do the changing lines of Hexagram 63 mean?

Line 1: "He brakes his wheels. He gets his tail in the water. No blame." Early caution prevents the momentum of success from carrying you too far. Line 2: "The woman loses the curtain of her carriage. Do not run after it. On the seventh day you will get it." Something is lost but will be naturally recovered if you do not chase it anxiously. Line 3: "The Illustrious Ancestor disciplines the Devil's Country. After three years he conquers it. Inferior people must not be employed." Major challenges require sustained effort and careful personnel choices. Line 4: "The finest clothes turn to rags. Be careful all day long." What appears excellent may contain hidden deterioration. Line 5: "The neighbor in the east who slaughters an ox does not attain as much real happiness as the neighbor in the west with his small offering." Sincere modest effort outweighs elaborate display. Line 6: "He gets his head in the water. Danger." The fox that carelessly wets its head at the end of crossing reveals the hexagram's terminal warning.