噬嗑

21. Biting through / Breakthrough

shìkè · Fire ☲ over Mountain ☶

Removing an obstacle through decisive action.

The Leader's Path

Thunder and lightning — an image of sudden, cleansing force. This is again the leader's domain: the clarity of law and consequence as the foundation of order.

The Lesson

If something calls for a radical solution, act on it firmly — but in the name of the common good, not your own being right.

A question to sit with

What hard decision am I putting off, even though I know it would clear up my situation?

Related hexagrams

In the I Ching no hexagram stands alone. Each one enters into relationships with others, and those relationships show the situation seen from the other side, in its opposite, and in its hidden tendency.

易

The classical deep dive for this hexagram — the Judgment and the Image after Richard Wilhelm — along with the texts of all six changing lines, is in the book. Get the book

卦

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