大畜 → 履
Hexagram 26: Great Taming → Hexagram 10: Treading
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5).
Line 3
九三 良馬逐。利艱貞。曰閑輿衛。利有攸往。
Nine in the third place means. A good horse that follows others. Awareness of danger, With perseverance, furthers. Practice chariot driving and armed defense daily. It furthers one to have somewhere to go.
Line 4
六四 童牛之牿。元吉。
Six in the fourth place means: The headboard of a young bull. Great good fortune.
Line 5
六五 豶豕之牙。吉。
Six in the fifth place means: The tusk of a gelded boar. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
三手六身，莫適所閑。更相搖動，失事便安。箕子佯狂，國乃不昌。
Three hands and six bodies, with no place to rest at ease. Shaking and jostling one another; losing one's footing brings sudden peace. Jizi feigned madness; the state would never prosper.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven stored within the mountain transforms into heaven above the lake — Treading. Three hands and six bodies jostle with no room to spare, shaking one another and losing control of affairs before finding uneasy peace. Then the verse invokes the Viscount of Ji, who feigned madness to survive the court of King Zhou of Shang. His state could never prosper under such conditions. From Great Taming to Treading, the mountain's stored heaven becomes the precarious image of treading upon a tiger's tail. Jizi's feigned insanity is survival through deliberate self-diminishment — reducing oneself to pass through danger. The verse warns: when accumulated power breeds chaos among too many competing forces, sometimes the wisest course is to play the fool.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store