噬嗑 → 坤
Hexagram 21: Biting Through → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 6).
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 4
九四 噬乾胏。得金矢。利艱貞。吉。
Nine in the fourth place means: Bites on dried gristly meat. Receives metal arrows. It furthers one to be mindful of difficulties And to be persevering. Good fortune.
Line 6
上九 何校滅耳。凶。
Nine at the top means: His neck is fastened in the wooden cangue, So that his ears disappear. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
甲戊己庚，隨時運行。不失常節，達性任情；各樂其類。
Jia, wu, ji, geng -- each follows the season's course. Never losing their proper measure, they fulfill their nature and yield to feeling; all delight in their own kind.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire and thunder enforce cosmic law, and here that enforcement yields to the Receptive's perfect order. The Heavenly Stems — jia, wu, ji, geng — rotate with the seasons, each following its appointed time without missing a beat. Nothing deviates from its constant rhythm; all creatures express their nature freely, each finding joy in its kind. The stems encode the calendrical system that structures Han-dynasty cosmology: wood, earth, earth, metal cycling through creation. From Biting Through to The Receptive, punishment dissolves into natural compliance. What once required thunder and lightning to enforce now operates through earth's quiet regularity — the deepest order needs no force because everything already knows its place.
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