同人 → 蒙
Hexagram 13: Fellowship → Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
Line 1
初九 同人于門。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: Fellowship with men at the gate. No blame.
Line 2
六二 同人于宗。吝。
Six in the second place means: Fellowship with men in the clan. Humiliation.
Line 3
九三 伏戎于莽。升其高陵。三歲不興。
Nine in the third place means: He hides weapons in the thicket; He climbs the high hill in front of it. For three years he does not rise up.
Line 4
九四 乘其墉。弗克攻。吉。
Nine in the fourth place means: He climbs up on his wall; he cannot attack. Good fortune.
Line 5
九五 同人先號咷而後笑。大師克相遇。
Nine in the fifth place means: Men bound in fellowship first weep and lament, But afterward they laugh. After great struggles they succeed in meeting.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
三羖五牂，相隨俱行；迷入空澤，經涉六駮，為所傷賊。
Three black bucks, five white ewes, following one another in a line. Straying into an empty marsh, they pass through dappled beasts and are wounded and preyed upon.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and fire form Fellowship, but the flock wanders into peril. Three black rams and five ewes travel together, straying into an empty marsh where they encounter the liubo — a fearsome spotted beast of legend. The animals are mauled and harmed. Fellowship degenerates when the group lacks discernment: these sheep follow one another blindly into dangerous terrain. From Fellowship to Youthful Folly, the transformation exposes the cost of naive togetherness. Mountain over water, a spring emerging from beneath a cliff — the young must learn through painful encounter. The flock's collective ignorance leads them precisely where predators wait, and the marsh that seemed empty conceals teeth.
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