噬嗑 → 否
Hexagram 21: Biting Through → Hexagram 12: Standstill
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 5).
Line 1
初九 履校滅趾。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: His feet are fastened in the stocks, So that his toes disappear. No blame.
Line 5
六五 噬乾肉。得黃金。貞厲。无咎。
Six in the fifth place means: Bites on dried lean meat. Receives yellow gold. Perseveringly aware of danger. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
朽根枯樹，葉落花去；卒逢火焱，相隨偃仆。
Rotten roots, withered tree -- leaves fall, blossoms gone. Suddenly meeting a raging fire, together they topple and collapse.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire and thunder once animated the law with crackling energy, but here all vitality has drained away. A rotted root, a withered tree, leaves fallen, flowers gone — and then wildfire sweeps through, and all collapses together in the blaze. The image is one of total exhaustion meeting sudden destruction: what was already dead is consumed by flame, leaving nothing. From Biting Through to Standstill, heaven and earth cease their communication. The enforcement mechanism itself has decayed beyond repair, and the fire that once illuminated justice now simply incinerates the remains. When the structure is already hollow, even a spark becomes an annihilating force.
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