Retreat 遯
Retreat is about stepping back with dignity when conditions turn against you. It is not running away but keeping your strength at the right moment.
Judgment
Success comes to the one who knows how to withdraw. In small matters, staying firm serves you well. When an opposing force is on the rise, do not wrestle with it. Step back in time and protect yourself.
Image
There is a mountain under heaven. However high the mountain rises, heaven stays out of reach. In the same way, the wise person keeps crude people at a distance, not with anger but with quiet reserve.
What does Retreat mean?
Sometimes the tide turns against you. The force in front of you grows while your own options shrink. Holding on out of stubbornness at such a time wears you down and may cost you everything. Retreat speaks of this moment. Sometimes the way to win a fight is not to enter it at all. Stepping back is not defeat. It is how you keep your strength so you can move forward again later. The traveler who heads home as night falls is not a coward, just sensible. A tree that bends in the storm does not break. The step you take back today prepares a firmer step tomorrow. See it as preparation, not loss.
Timing matters most here. If you wait too long you get cornered, and cornered people make poor decisions. Yet storming out and slamming the door is not right either. Stay calm, hold on to your values, and avoid needless arguments. Put distance between you and the situation without feeding any hostility. You do not have to cut every tie. You only need to stop wasting your energy. Keep doing your small tasks well. The one who steps back at the right moment may look like they lost, but they have actually protected themselves and their future.
What to do now
Withdraw from a struggle that drains you, without anger and without slamming the door.
Love and relationships
If you keep circling back to the same fight, stepping back a little will let you both breathe. This is not coldness but a pause so things can settle. If you need to move away from someone who wears you down, do it quietly and without hurting them.
Work and money
This is not the time for a big move. Stay out of a competition you are sure to lose, postpone risky investments, and protect what you have. If the balance of power at work is turning against you, lower your profile, do your job quietly, and wait for the right moment.
The lines
If a line changed (red) in your reading, read only that line. Lines are counted from the bottom up.
- First line
You are at the very tail of the retreat, and that is dangerous. Do not start anything new now. Stay where you are and keep quiet.
- Second line
You are bound with a strap of yellow oxhide that no one can loosen. You hold fast to something or someone you believe is right, and that loyalty keeps you standing.
- Third line
You want to withdraw, but your ties hold you back, and this brings strain and danger. Treating the people around you kindly helps you manage, but do not take on anything big.
- Fourth line
You willingly step back even from what you love. The wise person can do this and comes out ahead. Someone ruled by their appetites cannot.
- Fifth line
This is a retreat made in good time and with grace. As long as you stay firm and honest, the outcome is good.
- Top line
No ties hold you, and you move away with an easy heart and good cheer. This free retreat is fortunate in every way.
Trigrams
creative, strong
still, resting
Related hexagrams
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