復 → 兌
Hexagram 24: Return → Hexagram 58: The Joyous Lake
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 5).
Line 2
六二 休復。吉。
Six in the second place means: Quiet return. Good fortune.
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
賦歛重數，政為民賊。杼軸空虛，去其家室。
Taxes levied heavy and often; governance that robs the people. Shuttle and loom stand empty; they leave their homes behind.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder returns beneath the earth, but the state levies taxes relentlessly, and governance becomes a plague upon the people. Looms stand empty, shuttle and axle exhausted — the weavers have been stripped bare by extraction, and families abandon their homes. The image of empty looms is devastating: the productive heart of the household has been drained, not by famine or war but by the state's own rapacity. From Return to The Joyous, twin lakes sharing their waters in mutual delight. The transformation produces bitter irony: the hexagram of joy and shared abundance stands in stark contrast to a populace bankrupted by its own government. True joy requires that something remain to be shared; taxation that empties the loom leaves nothing for anyone.
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