觀 → 隨
Hexagram 20: Contemplation → Hexagram 17: Following
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 6).
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 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.
Line 6
上九 觀其生。君子无咎。
Nine at the top means: Contemplation of his life. The superior man is without blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
馬躓破車，惡婦破家；青蠅汙白，共子離居。
A stumbling horse wrecks the cart, a wicked wife wrecks the home; green flies stain the white -- Gongzi is driven from his dwelling.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind over earth observes a household falling apart. A stumbling horse wrecks the cart; a malicious wife ruins the family. Blue flies stain white silk — an image from the Shijing ode warning against slander — and parent and child are forced to live apart. The verse layers three parallel destructions: vehicular, domestic, and moral. The blue fly (qingying) allusion comes from the Xiao Ya section, where flies settle on white fabric as flatterers besmirch the innocent. Lake over thunder forms Following, which counsels yielding to the time. From Contemplation to Following, the lesson is bitter: following the wrong influence — the stumbling horse, the destructive spouse, the slanderer — leads not to harmony but to familial dissolution.
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