坤 → 損
Hexagram 2: The Receptive → Hexagram 41: Decrease
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 6).
Line 1
初六 履霜堅冰至。
Six at the beginning means: When there is hoarfrost underfoot, Solid ice is not far off.
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
拜跪請免，不得其哺。俛首衘枚，低頭北去。
Bowing and kneeling, begging for reprieve; no sustenance is given. Head lowered, biting down on the gag; head bowed, departing northward.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Earth upon earth yields to mountain above lake — Decrease. One kneels and begs for pardon but receives no sustenance. Head bowed, biting on a wooden gag, one trudges northward in silence. The image is devastating: a supplicant denied, then forced to march in the manner of a prisoner or conscript — the wooden gag (xianmei) was placed in soldiers' mouths to enforce silence during night marches. Mountain above lake, the image of Sun, shows the lake's waters diminishing to nourish the mountain — decrease below to increase above. From the Receptive to Decrease, the earth's nourishment is redistributed upward, and those at the bottom are left with nothing. The verse enacts Decrease's harsh arithmetic: someone must absorb the loss, and here it falls on the one who has no power to refuse.
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