坤 → 豫
Hexagram 2: The Receptive → Hexagram 16: Enthusiasm
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 4).
Line 4
六四 括囊。无咎无譽。
Six in the fourth place means: A tied-up sack. No blame, no praise.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
鈆刀攻玉,堅不可得。盡我筋力,眡蠒為疾。
A lead knife attacks jade; hard, it cannot be cut. Exhausting all sinew and strength; the silkworm cocoons become an affliction.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Earth upon earth transforms into thunder above earth — Enthusiasm. A lead knife tries to carve jade but cannot penetrate its hardness. One exhausts every sinew, squinting until the eyes blur like cocoon silk. Thunder emerging from the earth, the image of Yu, is the eruption of joyful energy — music, celebration, the mobilization of collective spirit. Yet the verse depicts futile effort: the wrong tool applied to the wrong material. Lead is too soft for jade, and no amount of straining changes this mismatch. From the Receptive to Enthusiasm, the earth's yielding nature confronts the need for explosive, thunderous action. The lesson is not that effort is worthless, but that enthusiasm misdirected — soft metal against hard stone — exhausts the worker without result.
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