否 → 歸妹
Hexagram 12: Standstill → Hexagram 54: The Marrying Maiden
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 5, 6).
Line 1
初六 拔茅茹。以其彙。貞吉。亨。
Six at the beginning means: When ribbon grass is pulled up, the sod comes with it. Each according to his kind. Perseverance brings good fortune and success.
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 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
悲號北行，失其長兄；伯仲不幸，骸骨散亡。
Wailing and traveling northward, having lost an elder brother. The eldest and second meet misfortune; their bones are scattered and gone.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and earth stand sealed as one weeps and wails heading north, having lost the eldest brother. Eldest and second-born alike meet misfortune, and their bones are scattered and lost. From Standstill to the Marrying Maiden, Pi's stagnation enters the thunder above the lake — Gui Mei's image of a younger sister given in marriage, a subordinate following along. Yet the verse speaks not of marriage but of death and dispersal: brothers lost, bones unburied, a family destroyed beyond recovery. Gui Mei warns about 'knowing the end and recognizing what is worn out,' and here the worn-out state is the family itself. The maiden is married into grief. Northward wailing marks the direction of death and winter, and Pi's cold intensifies into permanent loss.
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