觀 → 同人
Hexagram 20: Contemplation → Hexagram 13: Fellowship
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4).
Line 1
初六 童觀。小人无咎。君子吝。
Six at the beginning means: Boy like contemplation. For an inferior man, no blame. For a superior man, humiliation.
Line 3
六三 觀我生進退。
Six in the third place means: Contemplation of my life Decides the choice Between advance and retreat.
Line 4
六四 觀國之光。利用賓于王。
Six in the fourth place means: Contemplation of the light of the kingdom. It furthers one to exert influence as the guest of a king.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
有頭無目，不見菽粟；消耗為疾，三年不復。
Having a head but no eyes, one cannot see the millet and beans; waste and decline turn to illness -- for three years there is no recovery.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind over earth gazes upon a figure who cannot see. Having a head but no eyes, unable to distinguish even beans from millet — the most basic grain — this blindness is not physical but perceptive. Wasting disease consumes the body, and for three years there is no recovery. The verse depicts a failure of discernment so total that nourishment itself becomes invisible. Heaven and fire together form Fellowship, which classifies and distinguishes all things. From Contemplation to Fellowship, the transformation is bitterly ironic: the hexagram that should bring clarity through shared understanding meets a subject incapable of the most elementary perception. Without the ability to see, no fellowship is possible, and isolation festers into chronic decay.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store