无妄 → 艮
Hexagram 25: Innocence → Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 5).
Line 1
初九 无妄。往吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Innocent behavior brings good fortune.
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 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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
烹魚失刀，駕馬車亡。鉛刀不及，魴鯉腥臊。
Cooking fish, the knife is lost; harnessing the horse, the cart is gone. A lead blade falls short; bream and carp reek of rot.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Cooking fish but losing the knife; harnessing the horse but the cart is gone. A lead blade cannot reach the task, and the bream and carp remain rank and unscaled. Every image depicts inadequacy: the right tool missing at the crucial moment, leaving the job undone and the material spoiled. From Innocence to Keeping Still, the transformation traces failed action to enforced immobility. Gen's twin mountains stand still — 'thinking does not go beyond one's position.' The verse literalizes this: without knife, without cart, without a blade sharp enough, one is forced to stop. Yet Gen's stillness is not merely frustration; it is the recognition that acting without proper means is worse than not acting at all.
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