噬嗑 Biting Through
Upper trigram: Fire (fire) · Lower trigram: Thunder (thunder)
Remove the obstacle — decisive action to unblock what is stuck.
Modern interpretation
Something is lodged between you and your goal, and gentle measures will not move it. Bite through: be decisive, even legalistic if needed. Clear the blockage firmly and things will flow again.
The Judgment · 卦辞
亨。利用狱。
“Shih Ho indicates successful progress (in the condition of things which it supposes). It will be advantageous to use legal constraints.” — James Legge, The Yî King (1882)
The six lines · 爻辞
Read from the bottom line upward. Each line pairs the received Chinese text with Legge's English translation.
屦校灭趾，无咎。
“The first line, undivided, shows one with his feet in the stocks and deprived of his toes. There will be no error.”
噬肤灭鼻，无咎。
“The second line, divided, shows one biting through the soft flesh, and (going on to) bite off the nose. There will be no error.”
噬腊肉遇毒，小吝，无咎。
“The third line, divided, shows one gnawing dried flesh, and meeting with what is disagreeable. There will be occasion for some small regret, but no (great) error.”
“噬干胏，得金矢。利艰贞，吉。
“The fourth line, undivided, shows one gnawing the flesh dried on the bone, and getting the pledges of money and arrows. It will be advantageous to him to realise the difficulty of his task and be firm, in which case there will be good fortune”
噬干肉得黄金。贞厉，无咎。
“The fifth line, divided, shows one gnawing at dried flesh, and finding the yellow gold. Let him be firm and correct, realising the peril (of his position). There will be no error.”
何校灭耳，凶。
“The sixth line, undivided, shows one wearing the cangue, and deprived of his ears. There will be evil.”
About changing lines
In a real I Ching reading, hexagrams are built by casting coins or yarrow stalks six times, bottom line first. Some lines come out “old” (unstable) — an old yin or old yang flips into its opposite, producing a second hexagram that shows where the situation is heading. The changing lines are the moving parts of your answer: read their individual line statements above, and they point to the direction of change.
Ask a question and cast the coins — free, with a plain-English interpretation grounded in the classical text.
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