Hexagram 30 of 64
离 lí
Fire · Clinging
离 (lí, Fire) above · 离 (lí, Fire) below
The Judgment 卦辞
Fire burns by clinging to its fuel. Your clarity and warmth are real — but they depend on what feeds them. Choose your attachments consciously; tend the flame.
The Image 大象
Brightness doubled: fire. The great person illuminates the four quarters of the world with continuing light.
The six lines 爻辞
Each line of 离 has its own classical text. If a line in your cast is changing, its text is the heart of your reading.
Line 1 · 初九
Footsteps tangled and hurried — slow down and treat it with respect. No blame.
「履错然，敬之无咎」
Line 2 · 六二
Yellow light — clarity in the middle way. Supreme good fortune.
「黄离，元吉」
Line 3 · 九三
Sunset light: sing with the pot-drum, or sigh like ninety. Accept the decline gracefully or it embitters you.
「日昃之离，不鼓缶而歌，则大耋之嗟，凶」
Line 4 · 九四
It comes blazing suddenly — burning, dying, discarded. Fire that seizes what is not its place.
「突如其来如，焚如，死如，弃如」
Line 5 · 六五
Tears streaming, sighs of grief — and good fortune. Feeling the weight fully is what saves the heart.
「出涕沱若，戚嗟若，吉」
Line 6 · 上九
The king marches out — punishing the leaders, not the followers. Justice with measure, no blame.
「王用出征，有嘉折首，获匪其丑，无咎」
If you drew this in a reading
A pattern of tension and craft. This hexagram belongs to the large middle family of mixed patterns: it works, but only along its own grain. Read the Judgment closely — mixed hexagrams usually name the exact condition on which their promise depends.
In yes/no questions this hexagram reads as “not yet clear” — the answer hinges on timing and execution.
The trigrams give the flavor: 离 (Fire) above — clarity and clinging — insight, illumination, dependence on fuel — over 离 (Fire) below — clarity and clinging — insight, illumination, dependence on fuel. Where those two energies meet, 离 is born.
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