EN (English)
䷪
Hexagram 43 of 64
Breakthrough
夬 · Guài
A single yin line clinging at the top of five yang lines. The hexagram is about resolving something that must be removed, and it is unusually specific about method.
resolution
breakthrough
confrontation
speaking out
- King Wen number
- 43 of 64
- Above
- ☱ Duì · Lake
- Below
- ☰ Qián · Heaven
- Composition
- Lake over Heaven
- Lines, bottom to top
- Solid · solid · solid · solid · solid · broken
- Chinese
- 夬 · Guài
The Judgment
The matter must be declared at the king's court, truthfully and with a warning cry. There is danger. Notify your own city. It does not help to take up arms. It helps to undertake something.
The classic's clearest procedure for a confrontation: make it public, make it honest, warn your own side, and do not make it a fight.
The Image
The lake has risen up to heaven: Breakthrough. So the noble person distributes wealth downward and refrains from resting on their own virtue.
A lake suspended above the sky is about to fall. The counsel is to release the pressure by giving, before it releases itself.
What it means
Guai has five yang lines and one yin at the very top, and the situation is a decision: the last weak element must go. The classic agrees it must, and then spends the entire hexagram on how.
The Judgment is a procedure. Declare the matter at court, so it is public. Say it truthfully. Sound the warning. Notify your own people first. Do not resort to arms. This is the book's most detailed protocol for confrontation, and every clause is designed to prevent a resolution from becoming a brawl.
The Image explains the urgency with a physical image. A lake that has risen up to heaven is going to come down. The counsel is to release the pressure deliberately by distributing wealth downward, and to avoid the particular smugness of someone who is right.
The third line is the human one. Firmly resolved, walking alone, caught in the rain and spattered with mud while people mutter about him. No blame. The classic knows that doing the necessary thing often looks bad from outside, and it declines to weigh the appearance.
The top line closes the circle. No warning cry, and misfortune. Silence is the one failure the hexagram will not forgive.
In a reading
Breakthrough as an answer says something has to be confronted and removed, and that the moment for it has come.
Its counsel is procedural. Be open about it, be accurate, warn the people it affects, and do not turn it into a fight. Expect to look bad while doing it. The one thing the hexagram forbids is saying nothing.
The six lines
Read a line's text only when the cast made it a moving line. They are listed from the top of the figure down, the way the hexagram is drawn.
-
Six at the top
No cry of warning. In the end, misfortune.
Failing to speak. The hexagram opened by requiring a public declaration, and closes by naming the cost of silence.
-
Nine in the fifth place
Dealing with weeds, firm resolution is needed. Walking the middle remains free of blame.
The unglamorous version. Some things must simply be rooted out, steadily, without drama.
-
Nine in the fourth place
No skin on the thighs, and walking is hard. If he let himself be led like a sheep, regret would go. But hearing this, he will not believe it.
Stubborn forward motion in obvious pain, and the classic's rueful admission that the advice will be ignored.
-
Nine in the third place
Power in the cheekbones brings misfortune. The noble person is firmly resolved, walks alone, is caught in the rain and spattered. People mutter. No blame.
Resolve carried alone and looking bad. The line grants no blame precisely because the appearance is against him.
-
Nine in the second place
A cry of alarm. Arms at evening and at night. Do not be afraid.
Prepared for the confrontation and not frightened of it. Vigilance without panic.
-
Nine at the beginning
Powerful in the forward toes. Going out and not being equal to it is a mistake.
Setting off strong at the bottom without the capacity to finish. The classic's standard warning about eager starts.
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