无妄 → 恆
Hexagram 25: Innocence → Hexagram 32: Duration
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6).
Line 1
初九 无妄。往吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Innocent behavior brings good fortune.
Line 2
六二 不耕穫。不菑畬。則利有攸往。
Six in the second place means: If one does not count on the harvest while plowing, Nor on the use of the ground while clearing it, It furthers one to undertake something.
Line 3
六三 无妄之災。或繫之牛。行人之得。邑人之災。
Six in the third place means: Undeserved misfortune. The cow that was tethered by someone Is the wanderer's gain, the citizen's loss.
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
采唐沫鄉，要期桑中。失信不會，憂思約帶。
Under moonlight in the mulberry grove, waiting in vain. Shadows tread on scattered blossoms — no one comes. Dew soaks the sleeves, cold seeps to the bone — returning home, the belt is another inch too loose.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
The original verse reads: gathering tang-grass at Mei, a tryst arranged among the mulberries. Faith is broken — the lover does not come — and longing tightens the belt with grief. This directly references the Shijing ode 'Sang Zhong' about illicit meetings at the mulberry grove. The promised encounter fails, and the abandoned one wastes away in lonely waiting. From Innocence to Duration, the transformation deepens the irony: Heng means constancy, thunder and wind persisting together. Yet here constancy appears only in the steadfastness of unfulfilled longing. The lover who does not appear violates the trust that both Wuwang and Heng demand, leaving duration as nothing but the endurance of empty hoping.
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