I Ching · Hexagram 21
Shì Kè: Biting Through
Lightning and thunder strike together: something stands in the way, like a hard bite between the teeth, and it has to be bitten through. Shi Ke is about facing a problem directly and fairly.
- Keywords
- Decisiveness, justice, removing obstacles, clarity
- Upper trigram
- Fire (Li)
- Lower trigram
- Thunder (Zhen)
- Advice
- Name the obstacle and deal with it clearly; avoiding it lets it grow.
Changing lines
When you cast this hexagram, any changing line is turning into its opposite: yang into yin, or yin into yang. Changing them gives a second hexagram that suggests where things are heading. Hexagram meanings are a starting point for reflection, not predictions.