EN (English)
䷧
Hexagram 40 of 64
Deliverance
解 · Xiè
Thunder and rain arriving together after a long build-up. The hexagram is the release of tension, and the classic is specific about what to do in the hours immediately after.
release
resolution
forgiveness
clearing
- King Wen number
- 40 of 64
- Above
- ☳ Zhèn · Thunder
- Below
- ☵ Kǎn · Water
- Composition
- Thunder over Water
- Lines, bottom to top
- Broken · solid · broken · solid · broken · broken
- Chinese
- 解 · Xiè
The Judgment
The southwest rewards. If there is nowhere further to go, returning brings good fortune. If there is somewhere to go, going early brings good fortune.
Two situations, two answers, and both require promptness. The interval after a release does not stay open.
The Image
Thunder and rain break: Deliverance. So the noble person pardons faults and is lenient with wrongdoing.
The book's clearest statement about amnesty. The moment a tension breaks is the moment to forgive rather than to settle scores.
What it means
Xie is the storm breaking. Thunder above and water below, with the rain finally falling after the pressure of the preceding hexagram, and the classic is interested in the short window that follows.
Its first instruction is amnesty. The Image has the noble person pardoning faults and going easy on offences, which is the book's most explicit endorsement of letting things go. Deliverance is spoiled by using the moment of relief to settle accounts.
Its second is speed. The Judgment splits into two cases and answers both with promptness: if there is nothing left to do, return quickly; if there is something to do, do it early. Released tension redistributes fast, and hesitation wastes the opening.
The lines describe what has to be removed for the release to be complete. Three foxes taken in the field, the hidden things that were causing the trouble. A big toe, some small attachment at the very bottom that has to be detached before better company can arrive. And at the top, a hawk sitting on a high wall, taken with a single shot, which is the classic's image of dealing decisively with the one thing that has been overlooking everything.
In a reading
Deliverance as an answer says the difficulty is breaking up and the pressure is coming off.
Its counsel is to act quickly in the aftermath, to forgive rather than to reckon, and to clear away the small residual attachments that would drag the old situation back. The top line is a permission: if one specific obstacle remains, deal with it cleanly and once.
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
The prince shoots a hawk on a high wall. He hits it. Nothing that does not further.
One accurate shot at the thing that was overlooking everything. The best line in the hexagram.
-
Six in the fifth place
If the noble person can free themselves, good fortune, and it shows the small people they mean it.
Self-liberation as demonstration. The line makes internal release a public act.
-
Nine in the fourth place
Free yourself from your big toe. Then the companion arrives, and can be trusted.
Detaching from a small, low, clinging attachment. Only then does the right company appear.
-
Six in the third place
Carrying a load on your back while riding in a carriage invites raiders. Steadfastness brings humiliation.
Occupying a position you are visibly not equipped for. The classic quotes this line elsewhere as a study in inviting trouble.
-
Nine in the second place
Three foxes are taken in the field, and a bronze arrow is found. Steadfastness brings good fortune.
Removing what was quietly causing the trouble, and recovering something straight from it.
-
Six at the beginning
Without blame.
Three characters and no image. The tension has gone and nothing needs saying.
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