Key 43, 夬 Guài: the lake lifted above the sky

Meaning

夬 means to divide, to decide, to break through. Five strong lines have risen and one yielding line is left at the top: a last obstruction about to give way. The lake has been lifted above the sky, water that must come down. The statement of the hexagram asks for the matter to be declared openly at the king's court, sincerely and with a sense of danger, and warns that resort to arms does not further. Our gloss is resolute breakthrough. The text is on the hexagram 43 page.

In the Han calendars 夬 is the third lunar month, with yang almost complete. Key 43 pairs with key 44, the figure turned over; its opposite on the wheel is key 23, stripping away.

The three bands

The Shadow band, Belligerence, is the statement's 不利即戎: it does not further to take up arms. It is fighting the wrong with the wrong's own weapons. The Gift band, Outspokenness, is the statement's 揚于王庭, 孚號: raising the matter in the king's court, crying it out sincerely, in the open, to everyone concerned. The Siddhi band, Largesse, is the Image, 君子以施祿及下, 居德則忌: the noble person distributes gifts to those below and avoids resting on their own merit.

The bands describe resolve at three degrees: aggressive, candid and generous.

In a profile

Key 43 belongs to no particular row. It stands in a profile wherever one of the thirteen bodies stood between 18°52′30″ Scorpio and 24°30′ Scorpio at birth or at the design moment, and so it can fill any of the thirteen rows or the three further tags.

The Sun passes through it each year from about 11 to 16 November. People born then have key 43 as their Life's Work and its opposite, key 23, as their Evolution, the Earth's place. For people born about three months later, from about 6 to 10 February, it is the Radiance, where the Sun stood at the design moment.

Each of its six lines is 56′15″ wide. A position from 18°52′30″ Scorpio is in line 1, read by our theme Foundation; one from 23°33′45″ Scorpio is in line 6, Overview. Every key's lines take the same six themes of ours, and the line of a fast body like the Moon depends on the birth time to the hour.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Hexagram and number

夬 Guài, hexagram 43 in the received (King Wen) order of the Zhouyi; Legge (1882) writes the name Kwâi sourced

Trigram images

Heaven below, Lake / marsh above, as the Shuo Gua names them sourced

Our gloss

resolute breakthrough: EsoTerrier's own, the same in our I Ching chart, not a translator's title our construction

Our words for the three bands

Belligerence, Outspokenness and Largesse, written in October 2026 from the hexagram's own texts; none is one of Rudd's words our construction

Opposite on the wheel

Key 23, 180° round the wheel, with every line reversed; Rudd calls it the programming partner sourced

Pair in the received order

Key 44, 姤 Gòu: the same six lines turned upside down, next to it in the received order sourced

Within and upside down

Lines 2 to 5 give 1 乾 Qián; the figure turned upside down gives 44 姤 Gòu sourced

Codon ring (Rudd)

Rudd groups this key in his Ring of Destiny, which he ties to asparagine: his grouping and his choice of amino acid, not a finding of genetics sourced

Place on the wheel

Gate 43 of Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987 to 1989), 18°52′30″ Scorpio to 24°30′ Scorpio (228.875° to 234.5° of tropical longitude): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced

How the schools read it

The Zhouyi, after Legge (1882)

The matter is to be declared openly in the king's court, sincerely and aware of the danger, and made known in one's own town; taking up arms does not further; going on does. The text in full is on the hexagram 43 page.

Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987 onward)

Gate 43, in the Ajna centre. The parent system gives the gate its own name and reading, which are Jovian Archive's and which we do not give here.

Richard Rudd, The Gene Keys (2009)

Key 43, read at three bands he calls the Shadow, the Gift and the Siddhi, each with a word of his own, under a chapter title of his own; we reproduce neither. He names key 23 its programming partner.

EsoTerrier

Breakthrough by resolve: it fights a wrong with the wrong's own weapons, says the thing plainly and openly to everyone concerned, and at its peak gives freely to those below and takes no credit.

Claims about it

• Key 43 is a code held in the genes, and contemplating it changes how they are expressed.

  unverified

  What the record shows: The central metaphor of Rudd's system, given by its author, not a finding. The profile is the positions of thirteen bodies at two moments, read on a 64-part wheel; no gene, codon or measurement of the body enters it.

• Key 43 belongs to the Ring of Destiny, a chemical family in the body tied to asparagine.

  unverified

  What the record shows: Rudd's grouping. His ring sizes follow the real number of codons per amino acid in the genetic code, but which hexagram goes with which codon is his own choice, and nothing in genetics links a hexagram to an amino acid.

• The place of key 43 on the zodiac, 18°52′30″ Scorpio to 24°30′ Scorpio, is an old I Ching teaching.

  false

  What the record shows: The wheel is Ra Uru Hu's, fixed between 1987 and 1989 by turning Shao Yong's 11th-century circle of the hexagrams so that hexagram 41 begins at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we know ties the hexagrams to degrees of the zodiac.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Hexagram 43: Breakthrough the I Ching text this key is read from
• Key 23: 剝 Bō, stripping away its opposite on the wheel
• Key 44: 姤 Gòu, encounter, meeting its pair in the received order
• Key 1: 乾 Qián, strength that never rests the hexagram within it, lines 2 to 5
• Human Design gate 43 the same place in the system the profile is calculated by