I Ching Hexagram 07
Hexagram 7: Shi (师)
Composed of 坎 (Kan) below and 坤 (Kun) above · army · discipline · collective · strategy
The Judgment
师：贞，丈人吉，无咎。
Shi, the Army: hold to correctness and put it under an experienced hand - then it is good, and no fault attaches. Nothing is said about size or victory here. The whole judgment is about the conditions under which force is legitimate.
Translation notes
- 丈人: Wilhelm renders "the great man / the old man" — The oldest glosses read 丈人 as a seasoned commander, not as a title of grandeur. The point is experience and standing - the person who has done this before and can be held responsible - which is a much more testable condition than being impressive.
- 师: Wilhelm renders "army" — The same character is the master or teacher, and the hexagram does not pretend the two meanings are unrelated. An organised group held together by a shared standard is the same structure whether it is soldiers, a project team, or a household learning something. Read the lines as about group discipline, not warfare.
The judgment above quotes the classical Chinese of the Zhou Yi (public domain); the English gloss and modern reading are our own. Compare with James Legge's The I Ching (Sacred Books of the East, Vol 16) , 1882 (public domain).
Quick Answers
Is hexagram 7 (Shi) good or bad?
It is good, and conditionally so. The judgment says 贞, 丈人, 吉, 无咎 - correctness, an experienced hand, good fortune, no fault. What it does not say is that you will win, or that the undertaking is small. This is the hexagram's whole argument: organised collective action is a good thing when it has an accepted standard and the right person leading, and a disaster when it does not. 六三 and 六五 are the two failure states, and both are about who is actually in charge.
What does hexagram 7 (Shi) mean in love?
It means the relationship needs a shared standard, not more feeling. Single, it favours a deliberate approach over an intense one: a clear statement of intent and someone steady beats someone who sweeps you off your feet. The 初六 test is the practical one - if you cannot agree on how you will treat each other, the groundwork is not done. Partnered, it means the question is whether there is a common rule you both actually follow, or whether the two of you are simply drifting along on momentum, which is what 六三 describes as being carried along with corpses in the cart.
What happens when line 3 of hexagram 7 (Shi) changes?
Line 3 is 六三, 师或舆尸 - the group moves along with corpses in the cart, bad fortune. Flipping that single yin line to yang turns Shi into Hexagram 46 (Sheng, Rise), gradual and steady ascent. The direction is from drifting to rising: the passive middle position becomes an active yang, and a team that had no independent momentum starts gaining height through its own effort. In practice this shows up as a project or a group of people that finally stops waiting to be told what to do and begins to climb on its own structure.
The Six Lines
Read your line of interest below. Lines are read from the bottom (line 1) to the top (line 6). A changing line means the hexagram is transforming — see the related hexagrams at the bottom.
初六
师出以律，否臧凶。An army moves out under the rule. If the rule is not good, it goes badly. Change this and you get Hexagram 19 (Lin, Approach).
The first requirement, before any moving: a standard everyone accepts. The line is blunt that bad rules produce bad outcomes no matter how willing the people are. This applies to the operating principles in any group you are assembling - if nobody can state the rule, you are not ready to start.
九二
在师中，吉，无咎，王三锡命。You hold the centre of the army. Good fortune, no fault. The king grants command three times. Change this and you get Hexagram 2 (Kun).
The one who keeps the middle steady, stays inside the formation, and does not overreach. Note the threefold grant: authority given and confirmed repeatedly, which means your mandate is real and checked. This line describes a leader whose power comes from staying centred rather than from being visible at the front.
六三
师或舆尸，凶。The army is carried along with corpses in the cart. Bad fortune. Change this and you get Hexagram 46 (Sheng, Rise).
The worst line, and the most modern of the warnings. The person in the middle of the formation has no independent direction and the whole group is moved by whatever happens to it. This is what being managed rather than leading looks like - reactive, following whoever has momentum, and the cart ends up carrying the consequences.
六四
师左次，无咎。The army withdraws to the left-hand camp, taking the lower position. No fault. Change this and you get Hexagram 40 (Jie, Release).
Deliberate, disciplined retreat to a less favoured position. Nothing is lost by this and the line calls it faultless. Disengaging before a fight you cannot win, or repositioning to a worse spot for better ground later, is a legitimate strategy rather than a defeat.
六五
田有禽，利执言，无咎。长子帅师，弟子舆尸，贞凶。There are beasts in the field; it is right to make an accusation against them, no fault. The eldest son leads the army; if the younger men command instead, the cart carries corpses, and holding to that is bad fortune. Change this and you get Hexagram 29 (Kan, the Abysmal).
An incursion has happened, and naming it publicly is correct - silence would be the mistake. Then the harder instruction: the right person must lead, not the merely enthusiastic one. The gap between the capable elder and the willing amateur is the whole point of this line, and putting an eager substitute in charge is what turns a campaign into an expensive lesson.
上六
大君有命，开国承家，小人勿用。The great lord issues the command. A state is founded and a family given its inheritance. The small and unprincipled must not be used. Change this and you get Hexagram 4 (Meng, Youthful Folly).
The close of the campaign and the distribution afterward. Rewards, titles, territory - and one condition: do not put the reckless in charge of what has been built. The line is a governance instruction about the transition from fighting to administering, which is where most organizations actually fail.
Hexagram 7 in Love, Career & Decisions
Love & Relationships
Shi in love points to either a shared standard or the absence of one, and it is blunt about the second case. Single, it favours an organised, honest approach to a relationship - a clear intention stated, a shared sense of what this is, an experienced or steady partner rather than an exciting one. The 初六 line becomes the practical test: can you and this person state the same rule about how you treat each other? Partnered, it describes either a household that functions on common ground, or one where nobody is really leading and the relationship is just coasting on whatever has momentum. If it is the second, 六三 names it directly.
Agree out loud on one non-negotiable rule for how you treat each other, and both actually follow it.
Career & Work
Shi is the hexagram for building or leading a team, and it is favorable to structure and unfavorable to improvisation. The judgment's requirement is an experienced hand and an accepted standard, so it favors clear ownership, defined decision rights, and putting the person with judgment in charge rather than the person with the most energy. It also says something useful about retreat: 六四 treats a deliberate repositioning as faultless, so there is no shame in stopping a bad push. The specific failure to watch is 六三 - a team moving reactively with no one thinking, which is how good people end up carrying a dead project.
Write down who decides what and name the experienced person as owner of the risky part.
Making a Decision
Conditional, and the condition is about structure rather than intent. Yes if you have a stated standard, a named accountable person who has done this before, and a plan that does not depend on everyone being available at once. No if you are moving because the moment feels right, if the only people available to lead are the keenest but least experienced, or if you have not agreed what the rules of engagement are. The judgment is essentially a question about legitimacy: 师 is permissible under 贞 and 丈人, and unsupportable without them. Watch whether you would still be willing to state the rule publicly before starting.
State the rule and the accountable name out loud to everyone involved before you begin.
Health & Wellbeing
Shi reads as effort organised badly, or effort with no one looking after the person doing it. The image of pressure moving under the surface is apt for strain that builds without you noticing. The tone is corrective rather than alarming: the useful move is to impose structure on the effort - fixed schedule, real breaks, someone else's oversight - rather than to push harder. Training and discipline belong here, and so does 六四, which permits a straight retreat from a pace that is costing you. For entertainment and reflection only, not medical advice. Any persistent or worsening symptom is a clinician's business.
Add external structure to your week - fixed breaks and someone who will notice if you stop.
Cast This Hexagram Yourself
Ask your own question and let the three coins decide which hexagram answers it.
Start a Free Reading →