无妄 → 師
Hexagram 25: Innocence → Hexagram 7: The Army
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4, 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 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
火起上門，不為我殘。跳脫東西，獨得生完。不利出鄰，病疾憂患。
Fire breaks out at the upper gate; it does not consume me. Leaping east and west; alone I escape unharmed. Ill-favored to venture abroad; sickness and worry follow.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire breaks out above the gate, yet somehow spares the speaker — leaping east and west, one alone escapes intact. The verse then pivots sharply: venturing beyond the neighborhood brings only sickness and sorrow. From Innocence to The Army, the transformation reveals how personal survival intersects with collective discipline. The Army's image of water concealed within the earth suggests forces held in reserve, and the one who survives the blaze does so not by heroics but by disciplined response — dodging with instinct rather than charging forward. The closing warning encodes the Army's deeper lesson: safety lies in contained position, not reckless advance into hostile territory.
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