否 → 升
Hexagram 12: Standstill → Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
Line 2
六二 包承。小人吉。大人否。亨。
Six in the second place means: They bear and endure; This means good fortune for inferior people. The standstill serves to help the great man to attain success.
Line 3
六三 包羞。
Six in the third place means: They bear shame.
Line 4
九四 有命无咎。疇離祉。
Nine in the fourth place means: He who acts at the command of the highest Remains without blame. Those of like mind partake of the blessing.
Line 5
九五 休否。大人吉。其亡其亡。繫于苞桑。
Nine in the fifth place means: Standstill is giving way. Good fortune for the great man. "What if it should fail, what if it should fail?" In this way he ties it to a cluster of mulberry shoots.
Line 6
上九 傾否。先否後喜。
Nine at the top means: The standstill comes to an end. First standstill, then good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
結紐得解，憂不為禍；食利供家，受福安坐。
The tangled knot comes undone; worry does not become disaster. Gaining profit to supply the household; one receives blessing and sits at ease.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and earth stand apart, but the knot finds its loosening and worry does not become disaster. One feeds the family from one's earnings and sits in peace receiving blessings. From Standstill to Pushing Upward, Pi's blockage dissolves into earth above wind — wood growing gradually within the soil, the image of steady, patient ascent. Sheng's counsel is to 'accumulate the small to achieve the great,' and the verse illustrates this domestic arithmetic: untying the knot of anxiety, earning enough to supply the household, sitting secure. No drama, no heroics — only the quiet upward growth of a life managed well. Standstill resolves here not through breakthrough but through the unspectacular daily accretion that Pushing Upward prizes above all.
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