謙 → 既濟
Hexagram 15: Modesty → Hexagram 63: After Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 5).
Line 1
初六 謙謙君子。用涉大川。吉。
Six at the beginning means: A superior man modest about his modesty May cross the great water. Good fortune.
Line 5
六五 不富以其鄰。利用侵伐。无不利。
Six in the fifth place means: No boasting of wealth before one's neighbor. It is favorable to attack with force. Nothing that would not further.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
望幸不到，文章未就。王子逐兔，犬踦不得。
Hoping for favor, it does not arrive; the composition remains unfinished. The prince chases a hare; the lame hound cannot catch it.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Earth holds the mountain in patient expectation, but the hoped-for royal visit never arrives, and the literary work remains unfinished. A prince chases a rabbit, but the hound stumbles and cannot catch it. Every pursuit falls short: the audience with the king is denied, the composition breaks off, the quarry escapes. From Modesty to After Completion, water sits above fire in perfect but precarious balance — everything in place, yet the slightest shift means dissolution. The verse captures the frustration of near-completion: all elements are present but alignment eludes. After Completion warns against complacency precisely because its balance is so fragile. Here, modesty's patient waiting produces not fulfillment but the ache of perpetual almost — the rabbit always just beyond the hound's reach.
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