大畜 → 師
Hexagram 26: Great Taming → Hexagram 7: The Army
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 6).
Line 1
初九 有厲。利已。
Nine at the beginning means: Danger is at hand. It furthers one to desist.
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 6
上九 何天之衢。亨。
Nine at the top means: One attains the way of heaven. Success.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
不虞之患，禍至無門。奄忽暴卒，痛傷我心。
Clear sky suddenly split by a thunderclap; a great tree topples roots and all into the dust. The swallow's nest overturns, chicks scatter in all directions — yesterday flowers bloomed, today only ashes.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven stored within the mountain collapses into earth concealing water — the Army. The original verse reads: 'Unforeseen calamity; disaster arrives without warning. Sudden and violent death wounds my heart.' This is catastrophe without preamble: no siege, no battle, simply the abrupt annihilation of what seemed secure. Great Taming's accumulated strength meets the Army's hidden danger — water within earth, a subterranean force that surfaces without warning. The verse captures the anguish of loss that defies preparation: all the mountain's stored reserves cannot prevent what strikes from nowhere. From Great Taming to the Army, the transformation warns that even the most disciplined accumulation offers no guarantee against fate's arbitrary blow.
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