2027 Forecast

Hexagram 43 of 64

I Ching hexagram 43 ☱☰ Breakthrough

I Ching hexagram 43, Breakthrough, is lake above, heaven below. In brief: a resolute push past resistance. Its one broken line stands in place 6, counting from the bottom; the other five are solid.

Lines, bottom up
⚊⚊⚊⚊⚊⚋ 111110 · 1 = solid
Trigrams
Lake over Heaven Dui ☱ / Qian ☰
Every line changed
№ 23 Splitting Apart
In Legge, 1882
p. 151 Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16

Legge, The Yî King, 1882.

Paired with it line by line — changed, turned over or read from the inner lines: 23, Splitting Apart, 44, Coming to Meet and 1, The Creative.

Also with Lake above: 17, Following, 28, Great Exceeding and 31, Influence.

Also with Heaven below: 5, Waiting, 9, Small Taming and 11, Peace.

To draw a hexagram of your own, cast the I Ching with three coins.

I Ching Hexagram 43: Breakthrough

Upper trigram

☱

Lake (Dui) above

Joy and openness.

FamilyYoungest daughter
ElementMetal

Lower trigram

☰

Heaven (Qian) below

Creative force.

FamilyFather
ElementMetal

What the text says, in plain terms

The Judgement and the Image of hexagram 43

The Judgement

Breakthrough: a harmful influence must be exposed and removed. It should be named openly and resolved by determination, not by violence or force of arms.

The Image

A lake risen up into the sky, about to burst. The lesson is to distribute resources downward instead of hoarding position and wealth.

A summary of meaning written for this site, not a translation — James Legge’s 1882 translation of the full text follows below. How the Judgement and the Image are read, and which translations to use →

Primary source

Hexagram 43 in James Legge’s translation

The Judgement
“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.”
The Image
“(The trigram representing) heaven and that for the waters of a marsh mounting above it form Kwâi. The superior man, in accordance with this, bestows emolument on those below him, and dislikes allowing his gifts to accumulate (undispensed).”

The lines

  1. Line 1 · bottom The first line, undivided, shows its subject in (the pride of) strength advancing with his toes. He goes forward, but will not succeed. There will be ground for blame.
  2. Line 2 The second line, undivided, shows its subject full of apprehension and appealing (for sympathy and help). Late at night hostile measures may be (taken against him), but he need not be anxious about them.
  3. Line 3 The third line, undivided, shows its subject (about to advance) with strong (and determined) looks. There will be evil. (But) the superior man, bent on cutting off (the criminal), will walk alone and encounter the rain, (till he be hated by his proper associates) as if he were contaminated (by the others). (In the end) there will be no blame against him.
  4. Line 4 The fourth line, undivided, shows one from whose buttocks the skin has been stripped, and who walks slowly and with difficulty. (If he could act) like. a sheep led (after its companions), occasion for repentance would disappear. But though he hear these words, he will not believe them.
  5. Line 5 The fifth line, undivided, shows (the small men like) a bed of purslain, which ought to be uprooted with the utmost determination. (The subject of the line having such determination), his action, in harmony with his central position, will lead to no error or blame.
  6. Line 6 · top The sixth line, divided, shows its subject without any (helpers) on whom to call. His end will be evil.
James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 151 — read the original text. Words in parentheses are Legge’s own: in his preface he explains that they supply what the original writer left unsaid. “Undivided” and “divided” are his terms for yang and yin lines, counted from the bottom. The Image comes from the second appendix of the book, the Treatise on the Symbolism.

Breakthrough for a decision

Make the decisive statement or break with what is harmful. Do it openly and firmly, and prepare your own position so the fallout does not catch you.

I Ching 43 in love and relationships

A confrontation that cannot be avoided. Honesty, spoken calmly, is what clears it.

Hexagram 43 at work

Removing a problem person, practice or policy. Announce it clearly and follow through.

The six lines of hexagram 43

Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yang yang yang yang yang yin — what each position means.

Hexagram 43: Lake over Heaven
Hexagram 43, Breakthrough, line by line from the bottomlineplace · answer1Line 1 · yang, solidin its placeno answer from 42Line 2 · yang, solidout of placeno answer from 53Line 3 · yang, solidin its placeanswered by 64Line 4 · yang, solidout of placeno answer from 15Line 5 · yang, solidin its placeno answer from 26Line 6 · yin, brokenin its placeanswered by 3LowerQianHeavenUpperDuiLakeKing Wen sequence · read bottom to topastrohot.com

Five lines are yang and one is yin. Four of the six stand in their proper place, and the pair 3–6 answers.

What the two trigrams do to each other

Inner and outer

Heaven below — creative force — is the private, inner side of hexagram 43.

Lake above — joy and openness — is the world that side meets.

The five-element relation

Both trigrams are Metal, so nothing in the figure pulls against anything else. That makes the reading unusually single-minded — and unusually short of internal correction.

Read as a family

The youngest daughter sits above and the father below. A child over a parent — an inversion of the expected order, and usually read as a situation where the junior position carries the initiative.

Calculated from the lines

Hexagrams connected to hexagram 43

Hexagram 1, The Creative

Nuclear hexagram

1 · The Creative

What is happening beneath the surface.

Lines 2–4 give Qian (Heaven) as the lower trigram, lines 3–5 give Qian (Heaven) as the upper.

Hexagram 23, Splitting Apart

Opposite hexagram

23 · Splitting Apart

The situation turned inside out.

Change all six lines and Lake over Heaven becomes Mountain over Earth.

Hexagram 44, Coming to Meet

Inverse hexagram

44 · Coming to Meet

The situation seen from the other side.

Turn the figure upside down and Lake over Heaven becomes Heaven over Wind.

None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.

The image

Lake above, Heaven below.

Lake over Heaven: joy and openness meeting creative force.

← 42 · All 64 · 44 →

39 Obstruction 40 Deliverance 41 Decrease 42 Increase 44 Coming to Meet 45 Gathering Together 46 Pushing Upward

Sources

  1. James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 151

Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.

Cite this page

AstroHot. “I Ching Hexagram 43: Breakthrough.” Accessed October 28, 2026. https://astrohot.com/i-ching/hexagram/43/

For Wikipedia {{cite web |title=I Ching Hexagram 43: Breakthrough |url=https://astrohot.com/i-ching/hexagram/43/ |website=AstroHot |access-date=2026-10-28}}