Hexagram 11: Peace → Hexagram 58: The Joyous Lake

Peace
Earth / Heaven
The Joyous Lake
Lake / Lake
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5).

Line 3

九三 无平不陂。无往不復。艱貞无咎。勿恤其孚。于食有福。

there is not
pínglevel
without
slope
there is no
wǎnggoing
without
return
jiāndifficult
zhēnto persist
without
jiùmistake
do not
worry
these
certainties
in
shínourishment
yǒufind
happiness

Nine in the third place means: No plain not followed by a slope. No going not followed by a return. He who remains persevering in danger Is without blame. Do not complain about this truth; Enjoy the good fortune you still possess.

Line 4

六四 翩翩。不富以其鄰。不戒以孚。

piānfluttering
piānfluttering
no
enrichment
making use of
one's
línneighbors
avoid
jièlimit
the ways
trust

Six in the fourth place means: He flutters down, not boasting of his wealth, Together with his neighbor, Guileless and sincere.

Line 5

六五 帝乙歸妹。以祉元吉。

Lord
Yi (next to the last Shang Emperor)
guīgiving
mèihis little sister
meant
zhǐhappiness
yuánfirst-rate
good fortune

Six in the fifth place means: The sovereign I Gives his daughter in marriage. This brings blessing And supreme good fortune.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramEarth LakeThe Receptive → The Joyous
Lower TrigramHeaven LakeThe Creative → The Joyous

Yilin Verse

水壞我里,東流為海;龜鳧讙囂,不覩慈母。

Water breaches our village, flowing east to the sea. Turtles and ducks cry in clamor; they cannot see their dear mother.

— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE

Commentary

Earth above heaven, Peace inundated. Floodwaters destroy the village, pouring eastward into the sea. Turtles and wild ducks clamor noisily amid the ruins, and the children cannot find their mother. The scene is devastation after a flood: human habitation replaced by aquatic creatures, family bonds severed by rising waters. The mother-child separation is the verse's emotional core — chaos at its most primal. From Peace to The Joyous, paired lakes commune in mutual delight, and the gentleman gathers friends for learning. The transformation is bitterly ironic: where Joyous promises the pleasures of shared waters, this verse shows waters that shatter rather than unite. Joy requires that the lake be contained; uncontained, it becomes catastrophe.

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