家人

Hexagram 20: Contemplation → Hexagram 37: The Family

Contemplation
Wind / Earth
家人
The Family
Wind / Fire
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 3).

Line 1

初六 童觀。小人无咎。君子吝。

tóngchild's
guānperspective
xiǎofor little
rénpeople
no
jiùblame
jūnbut for a noble
young one
lìnan embarrassment

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。

guānperceiving
our
shēnglives
jìnas
退tuìand

Six in the third place means: Contemplation of my life Decides the choice Between advance and retreat.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramWind Wind
Lower TrigramEarth FireThe Receptive → The Clinging

Yilin Verse

冬葉枯槁,當風於道;蒙被塵埃,左右勞苦。

Winter leaves, withered and dry, stand in the wind upon the road; blanketed in dust and grime -- toil and hardship on every side.

— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE

Commentary

Wind over earth strips winter's desolation bare. Dead leaves, dried and brittle, stand exposed on the road against the wind. Covered in dust and grime, one labors left and right without respite. The verse captures exhaustion at its most elemental — no narrative, no historical figure, only a body worn down by wind and dust like the season's last withered foliage. Wind from fire forms the Family, where warmth radiates outward as domestic order. From Contemplation to the Family, the contrast is sharp: the hexagram of household warmth meets someone cast into the cold road. The winter leaf on the highway is the opposite of the hearthside — rootless, wind-battered, with no family shelter to return to.

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