坤 → 蒙
Hexagram 2: The Receptive → Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 2, 6).
Line 2
六二 直方大。不習无不利。
Six in the second place means: Straight, square, great. Without purpose, Yet nothing remains unfurthered.
Line 6
上六 龍戰于野。其血玄黃。
Six at the top means: Dragons fight in the meadow. Their blood is black and yellow.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
城上有烏，自名破家。招呼酖毒，為國患災。
On the city wall sits a crow, calling itself Breaker-of-Homes. It summons poison and venom, bringing plague and disaster to the state.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Earth upon earth transforms into mountain above water — Youthful Folly. A crow perches on the city wall, its very name meaning 'wreck the house.' It summons poison and brings calamity upon the state. The ominous bird on the ramparts is a classical image of ill portent, the creature whose nature is destruction insinuating itself into the seat of power. Mountain above water, the image of Meng, shows a spring emerging beneath the mountain but not yet knowing its course — youthful ignorance that can be guided or can ruin. From the Receptive to Youthful Folly, the earth's indiscriminate receptivity becomes its vulnerability: Kun accepts all comers, and when what arrives is poison disguised as a bird, the naive host is destroyed from within.
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