无妄 → 節
Hexagram 25: Innocence → Hexagram 60: Limitation
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 6).
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 4
九四 可貞。无咎。
Nine in the fourth place means: He who can be persevering Remains without blame.
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
嬰孩求乳,慈母歸子。黃麑悅喜,得其甘餌。
An infant seeks the breast; the kindly mother returns to her child. A young fawn, joyful and glad; finding its sweet fodder.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
An infant cries for milk, and the loving mother returns to her child. A young fawn leaps with delight, finding its sweet fodder. Every image radiates natural fulfillment: need calls forth provision, and joy accompanies satiation. From Innocence to Limitation, the transformation frames this tenderness within necessary structure. Jie's image of water above the lake represents measured containment — not deprivation but proper proportion. The mother's milk is neither withheld nor unlimited; it arrives when the child needs it, in the quantity nature intends. The fawn's sweet fodder is similarly calibrated. Wuwang's spontaneous rightness here becomes Jie's principle: true nourishment works through natural limits, not despite them.
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