否 → 艮
Hexagram 12: Standstill → Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5).
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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
興役不休，與民爭時；牛生五趾，行危為憂。
Raising levies without cease, contesting the seasons with the people. The ox is born with five toes; the path is perilous, cause for worry.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and earth stand apart as corvee labor proceeds without rest, and the ruler contends with the people for their seasonal labor. An ox is born with five toes — a portent of disorder — and the path ahead grows perilous. From Standstill to Keeping Still, Pi's stagnation transforms into the doubled mountain — Gen's absolute stillness. Yet the verse shows what happens when stillness is violated: endless labor steals the people's planting season, a five-toed ox signals nature deformed by misgovernment, and anxiety pervades. Gen's counsel is to 'think without going beyond one's position,' but the ruler here has transgressed every boundary. True stillness would mean stopping the corvee and letting the land recover. The mountain that should protect instead oppresses.
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