Hexagram 61: Limitation

Through the years I have dabbled in studying different religions and philosophies. One of my favorite "soothing" books is the I Ching. I am very fond of the "taoist" strain in its teachings, not so much the "confucianist."

Since I have been on the NO S Diet, I have often thought of Hexagram 61: Limitation and how enlightening it was the first time I read it. In a culture where "more" is never enough and "too much" hardly seems like a respectable amount, the wisdom of "limitation" is like good medicine.

Let's look at some excerpts from the Wilhelm translation below:

The Judgement

Limitation. Success.
Galling limitation must not be persevered in.

The Image

A lake is something limited. Water is inexhaustible. A lake can only contain a definite amount of the infinite quantity of water; this is its peculiarity. In human life too the individual achieves signficance through the discrimination and setting of limits ... Unlimited possibilites are not suited to man; if they existed his life would only dissolve in the boundless. To become strong, a man's life needs the limitations ordained by duty and voluntarily accepted. The individual attains significance as a free spirit only by surrounding himself with these limitations and by determining for himself what his duty is.

To me traditional diets are a "galling limitation", i.e. limits that lead to the "misfortune" of failure if "persevered" in. The"diet backlash" or binge that follows every diet is a good example of such "misfortune". The No S Diet, on the other hand, gives us just enough limits to be appropriately discriminating in our daily eating lives.

The No S Diet is definitely NOT a "galling limitation." It is just the right amount of limits to help us acheive "success" and get on with the business of living our otherwise fascinating lives.