同人 → 未濟
Hexagram 13: Fellowship → Hexagram 64: Before Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 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 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
桑戶竊脂，啄粟不宜；亂政無常，使心孔明。
A sparrow pecks at mulberry bark, stealing grain it should not eat. Governance without constancy and order; yet the heart remains keenly aware.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and fire form Fellowship, but the household is raided by petty thieves and bad counsel. A sparrow steals grease from the mulberry-wood door — pilfering from the home's very threshold. Pecking at grain where it does not belong, the bird transgresses its natural boundaries. Governance loses all consistency; yet the heart remains keenly aware, seeing through the disorder with painful clarity. From Fellowship to Before Completion, the transformation suspends resolution indefinitely. Fire above water in Before Completion; the noble man carefully distinguishes things and places them correctly. The verse's chaos — the thieving sparrow, the inconsistent rule — is precisely the unfinished state that Before Completion names. Awareness without order is the last stage before a new beginning, if one can endure the dissonance.
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