復 → 夬
Hexagram 24: Return → Hexagram 43: Breakthrough
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 5).
Line 2
六二 休復。吉。
Six in the second place means: Quiet return. Good fortune.
Line 3
六三 頻復。厲。无咎。
Six in the third place means: Repeated return. Danger. No blame.
Line 4
六四 中行獨復。
Six in the fourth place means: Walking in the midst of others, One returns alone.
Line 5
六五 敦復。无悔。
Six in the fifth place means: Noblehearted return. No remorse.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
水沫沉浮，沮濕不居，為心疾憂。
Water foam sinks and floats; dank and wet, no place to settle — a source of heartache and worry.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder returns beneath the earth, but the surface is nothing but froth and foam, rising and sinking without rest. The ground is waterlogged and uninhabitable, and the heart is consumed by anxious illness. Water foam — formless, unstable, neither liquid nor solid — is a precise metaphor for anxiety: thoughts churning without settling, the mind unable to find firm ground. From Return to Breakthrough, lake ascends above heaven in a decisive surge. The transformation suggests that the remedy for chronic instability is not gradual calming but sudden resolution — the lake must rise and overflow, the decision must be made, the stagnant foam must be swept away by a single determined act that clears the channel.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store