復 → 屯
Hexagram 24: Return → Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 5).
Line 5
六五 敦復。无悔。
Six in the fifth place means: Noblehearted return. No remorse.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
懸狟素飡，食非其任。失輿剝廬，休坐徙居，室家何憂。
Hanging idle, eating unearned food; feeding beyond one's station. Losing the cart, stripped of the roof; sitting idle, then moving house — what worry has the family?
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder returns beneath the earth, but this homecoming brings only destitution. A creature hangs suspended, eating food it has not earned — sustenance taken without rightful claim. The carriage is lost, the shelter stripped away, and one must sit idle before uprooting to a new dwelling. Yet the verse ends with a question rather than despair: 'What has the household to fear?' Amid displacement, the family bond persists. From Return to Difficulty at the Beginning, clouds and thunder gather as new roots must be planted in unfamiliar soil. The transformation captures the paradox of forced beginnings: loss of the old structure is precisely what makes genuine renewal possible, however painful the transition.
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