大畜 → 觀
Hexagram 26: Great Taming → Hexagram 20: Contemplation
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 5).
Line 1
初九 有厲。利已。
Nine at the beginning means: Danger is at hand. It furthers one to desist.
Line 2
九二 輿說輹。
Nine in the second place means: The axletrees are taken from the wagon.
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 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
三雎逐蠅,陷墮釜中。灌沸弇殪,與母長決。
Three shrikes chase a fly; they fall into the cauldron. Scalded in boiling water, they perish; parted from their mother forever.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven stored within the mountain becomes wind moving over earth — Contemplation. Three chicks chase a fly and tumble into a boiling cauldron. Scalded and killed in the seething water, they are parted from their mother forever. The image is stark and pitiable: small creatures destroyed by reckless pursuit of something trivial. The fly lures them to their death in the very vessel meant to nourish. From Great Taming to Contemplation, the mountain's stored heaven becomes wind surveying the earth — the sage-king's dispassionate observation. The verse demands that we contemplate folly's consequences: stored resources (the cauldron, the household) become instruments of destruction when young and foolish creatures chase the wrong quarry.
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