噬嗑 → 豐
Hexagram 21: Biting Through → Hexagram 55: Abundance
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 3, 6).
Line 3
六三 噬腊肉。遇毒。小吝。无咎。
Six in the third place means: Bites on old dried meat And strikes on something poisonous. Slight humiliation. No blame.
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
一夫兩心,岐刺不深;所為無功,求事不成。
One man with two minds, the forked needle does not pierce deep; all that he does bears no fruit -- what he seeks cannot be achieved.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire and thunder enforce the law, and here a divided heart undermines everything. A man with two minds cannot drive his point home — the needle (岐刺) does not penetrate deeply. All his efforts come to nothing; every undertaking fails. The image of a forked needle that barely pierces the surface captures vacillation perfectly: half-commitment produces half-results, which amount to no results at all. From Biting Through to Abundance, thunder and lightning should arrive together in overwhelming force. Yet the verse shows the opposite: when inner resolve is split, even abundance's thunder and fire cannot combine into decisive action. Abundance requires wholeness of intent; a divided will squanders even the richest resources.
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