觀 → 屯
Hexagram 20: Contemplation → Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 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 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
秋冬探巢，不得鵲雛；衘指北去，媿我少姬。
Searching the nest in autumn and winter, one finds no magpie fledgling; biting the finger, one departs northward -- shaming my young bride.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind sweeps the earth in contemplation, but the season is wrong. Someone searches a magpie's nest in autumn or winter — the fledglings are long gone. Biting a finger in frustration, the searcher heads north, ashamed before the young bride. The magpie builds its nest in spring; to raid it after the season reveals a fundamental misreading of timing. The shame before the bride suggests a failed provider, returning empty-handed. From Contemplation to Difficulty at the Beginning, the pattern is clear: observation that fails to read the moment correctly plunges into the cloud-and-thunder confusion of a difficult start. One who acts out of season finds only absence where abundance should have been.
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