无妄 → 坤
Hexagram 25: Innocence → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 5, 6).
Line 1
初九 无妄。往吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Innocent behavior brings good fortune.
Line 4
九四 可貞。无咎。
Nine in the fourth place means: He who can be persevering Remains without blame.
Line 5
九五 无妄之疾。勿藥有喜。
Nine in the fifth place means: Use no medicine in an illness Incurred through no fault of your own. It will pass of itself.
Line 6
上九 无妄。行有眚。无攸利。
Nine at the top means: Innocent action brings misfortune. Nothing furthers.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
慈母之恩，長大無孫。消息襁褓，害不入門。
The kindly mother's grace; grown tall, yet without grandchildren. Watching over the swaddling cloth; harm does not enter the gate.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder moves beneath heaven, yet the verse turns inward to the sheltering power of earth. A loving mother's kindness nurtures growth, but the children she raises have no grandchildren — the line falters. The verse consoles: wrapped safe in swaddling clothes, harm cannot enter the door. From Innocence to the Receptive, heaven's spontaneous thunder yields to earth's quiet containment. The mother's care embodies Kun's principle of devoted nourishment — not generating new force but preserving what already lives. Even where posterity fails, the receptive stance absorbs misfortune at the threshold, refusing it entry. Protection here is not active defense but the thick, patient earth that simply holds.
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