乾 → 訟
Hexagram 1: The Creative → Hexagram 6: Conflict
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 3).
Line 1
初九 潛龍勿用。
Nine at the beginning means: Hidden dragon. Do not act.
Line 3
九三 君子終日乾乾。夕惕若厲。无咎。
Nine in the third place means: All day long the superior man is creatively active. At nightfall his mind is still beset with cares. Danger. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
罷馬上山，絕無水泉。喉焦唇乾，舌不能言。
A weary horse climbs the mountain; there is utterly no water or spring. Throat parched, lips dry; the tongue cannot speak.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
An exhausted horse climbs a mountain where no spring exists. Throat parched, lips cracked, the tongue cannot speak. From Creative to Conflict, heaven and water move in opposite directions — the very image of things at cross-purposes. The verse strips this cosmic opposition down to visceral suffering: energy expended uphill with no water to sustain it. Conflict's counsel is to plan carefully from the start, yet here the journey was undertaken without securing the most basic resource. The horse labors, the rider is mute with thirst. When heaven's drive opposes the water it needs, even the strongest initiative desiccates into silence.
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