大畜 → 既濟

Commentary

Heaven stored within the mountain settles as water above fire — After Completion. Six wild geese fly together, playing in the rice paddies. They eat and drink their fill without a care. Yet the verse turns: undertakings do not succeed, and merchants are thrown into confusion. After Completion is the moment when everything is in place — water and fire in perfect balance — but the I-Ching warns that this very completeness invites decline. The geese feast contentedly, a picture of satiation, but satiation breeds complacency. From Great Taming to After Completion, the mountain's stored heaven achieves perfect equilibrium. The geese are fed; the stores are full. But 'thinking of trouble and preparing against it' — the hexagram's own counsel — goes unheeded, and the merchant's affairs unravel.