Hexagram 43 for work
Hexagram 43 Decisiveness for work and career
At work Guai is the point where an organisation with strength on its side finally deals with what has been riding on top of it: a bad arrangement, a person whose time is up. The Great Image gives the leader's conduct: 'distribute benefits to those below, and shun resting on one's virtue' (施祿及下，居德則忌) — the breakthrough is legitimate only if its gains are shared and its authors do not become self-satisfied. The judgment's sequence is the procedure: state the case openly, declare the danger, warn one's own side first, and do not reach for weapons.
For a project, a job or a negotiation, line one is the eager junior who moves first and loses; line two is the vigilance that keeps the team calm; line four is the person who should fall in with the others but will not listen; line five is the leader who must be doubly firm with something soft and persistent. A changing line in the lower trigram says build strength and alertness before acting; in the upper trigram, the action is under way and the question is its clean completion.
The hexagram in brief
The lake risen to heaven: the cloudburst about to fall. Five yang lines resolve to remove the last yin — declare it openly at court, stay alert, and don't rely on arms.
Be resolute and public about removing what is wrong, but without hatred or violence; strength that is also gentle wins.
The judgment
夬：揚于王庭，孚號，有厲，告自邑，不利即戎，利有攸往。Kwâi requires (in him who would fulfil its meaning) the exhibition (of the culprit's guilt) in the royal court, and a sincere and earnest appeal (for sympathy and support), with a consciousness of the peril (involved in cutting off the criminal). He should (also) make announcement in his own city, and show that it will not be well to have recourse at once to arms. (In this way) there will be advantage in whatever he shall go forward to.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 夬 Decisiveness has its own page:
- 初九Nine at the beginningstrength in the toes · advancing too soon · cannot prevail
- 九二Nine in the second placealarm cry · armed at night · no anxiety
- 九三Nine in the third placestrength in the face · walking alone · soaked but blameless
- 九四Nine in the fourth placeno skin on the buttocks · halting · hears but does not believe
- 九五Nine in the fifth placepurslane · resolute at the centre · not yet bright
- 上六Six at the topno one to call · the last yin · cannot last
The same hexagram for
Questions
- What does hexagram 43, Decisiveness, mean for a career question?
- At work Guai is the point where an organisation with strength on its side finally deals with what has been riding on top of it: a bad arrangement, a person whose time is up. The Great Image gives the leader's conduct: 'distribute benefits to those below, and shun resting on one's virtue' (施祿及下，居德則忌) — the breakthrough is legitimate only if its gains are shared and its authors do not become self-satisfied. The judgment's sequence is the procedure: state the case openly, declare the danger, warn one's own side first, and do not reach for weapons.
- What does Hexagram 43, 夬 Decisiveness, mean?
- The lake risen to heaven: the cloudburst about to fall. Five yang lines resolve to remove the last yin — declare it openly at court, stay alert, and don't rely on arms.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).