EN (English)
☲
One of the eight trigrams
Fire
離 · Lí
An open line held inside two solid ones, the exact inversion of Kǎn. Lí is fire and the sun: light, intelligence, beauty, and the dependence that comes with all three.
clarity
dependence
brilliance
attachment
- Lines, bottom to top
- Solid · broken · solid
- Image
- Fire, the sun
- Attribute
- Clinging, illuminating
- Family role
- The middle daughter
- Element
- Fire
- Direction
- South (Later Heaven)
- Season
- Summer
- Animal
- Pheasant
- Body
- The eye
What it means
The character 離 carries both meanings the trigram needs: to cling, and to separate. Fire clings to its fuel and cannot exist for a moment without it, and the same flame separates what it lights from what it leaves dark.
So Lí is the classic's trigram of consciousness, and of consciousness understood honestly. Clarity is not self-generating. It attaches to a body, a discipline, a teacher, a text, and it goes out when that support is withdrawn. Hexagram 30 opens by recommending care of the cow, an image about tending the docile thing that feeds you rather than admiring the blaze.
Its associations run through vision and display: the eye, the pheasant with its patterned feathers, the south at noon, the summer. Its shadow is brilliance without ground, the argument that dazzles and convinces nobody the next morning. As the middle daughter, Lí carries Kūn's receptivity into the centre, where it becomes the hollow that a flame needs in order to burn.
In a reading
Lí asks what a situation is resting on. It usually indicates that seeing clearly is available, and that the seeing depends on something you have to keep maintaining.
Read it as intelligence in a reading, and read the trigram it pairs with as the fuel. When Lí doubles, expect great clarity and check whether anyone has stopped to feed the fire.
Where it appears
As the upper trigram: 14. Great Possession, 21. Biting Through, 30. The Clinging, 35. Progress, 38. Opposition, 50. The Cauldron, 56. The Wanderer, 64. Before Completion.
As the lower trigram: 13. Fellowship, 22. Grace, 30. The Clinging, 36. Darkening of the Light, 37. The Family, 49. Revolution, 55. Abundance, 63. After Completion.
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