离 Radiance
Upper trigram: Fire (fire) · Lower trigram: Fire (fire)
Clarity and attachment — cling to what is right and let it shine.
Modern interpretation
This is a time for visibility, intelligence, and warm connection. Cling to principle the way fire clings to fuel, and let your clarity illuminate others. Stay attached to what is right, not to any particular outcome.
The Judgment · 卦辞
利贞。亨。畜牝牛吉。
“Lî indicates that, (in regard to what it denotes), it will be advantageous to be firm and correct, and that thus there will be free course and success. Let (its subject) also nourish (a docility like that of) the cow, and there will be good fortune.” — 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.
履错然，敬之无咎。
“The first line, undivided, shows one ready to move with confused steps. But he treads at the same time reverently, and there will be no mistake.”
黄离，元吉。
“The second line, divided, shows its subject in his place in yellow. There will be great good fortune.”
日昃之离，不鼓缶而歌，则大耋之嗟，凶。
“The third line, undivided, shows its subject in a position like that of the declining sun. Instead of playing on his instrument of earthenware, and singing to it, he utters the groans of an old man of eighty. There will be evil.”
突如，其来如，焚如，死如，弃如。
“The fourth line, undivided, shows the manner of its subject's coming. How abrupt it is, as with fire, with death, to be rejected (by all) !”
出涕沱若，戚嗟若，吉。
“The fifth line, divided, shows its subject as one with tears flowing in torrents, and groaning in sorrow. There will be good fortune.”
王用出征，有嘉折首，获匪其丑，无咎。
“The topmost line, undivided, shows the king employing its subject in his punitive expeditions. Achieving admirable (merit), he breaks (only) the chiefs (of the rebels). Where his prisoners were not their associates, he does not punish. There will be no error.”
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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