无妄

Hexagram 27: Nourishment → Hexagram 25: Innocence

Nourishment
Mountain / Thunder
无妄
Innocence
Heaven / Thunder
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 4, 5).

Line 4

六四 顛頤。吉。虎視眈眈。其欲逐逐。无咎。

diānabnormal
appetite
is promising
the tiger
shìlooks
dānstaring
dānand staring
with its own
passion
zhúis to hunt
zhúand give chase
but no
jiùblame

Six in the fourth place means: Turning to the summit For provision of nourishment Brings good fortune. Spying about with sharp eyes Like a tiger with insatiable craving. No blame.

Line 5

六五 拂經。居貞吉。不可涉大川。

dismissing
jīngthe norms
to practice
zhēnpersistence
is promising
but one is not
suited
shèto
the great
chuānstream

Six in the fifth place means: Turning away from the path. To remain persevering brings good fortune. One should not cross the great water.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramMountain HeavenKeeping Still → The Creative
Lower TrigramThunder Thunder

Yilin Verse

棟橈榱壞,廊屋大敗。宮闕空廊,如冬枯樹。

The ridgepole buckles, the rafters rot; the galleries and halls fall to ruin. Palace towers stand as empty corridors; like winter barren trees.

— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE

Commentary

Mountain over thunder gives way to heaven under thunder — Innocence, the unexpected. The ridgepole sags and the rafters crack; corridors and chambers fall to ruin. Palace halls stand empty, like winter's barren trees. The verse directly echoes the I-Ching's Great Exceeding image of structural failure: the ridgepole, which supports the entire building, bends past its limit. Yet the target hexagram is not Great Exceeding but Innocence — the bolt from heaven that strikes without warning. From Nourishment to Innocence, the transformation is devastating: what was carefully nourished and maintained collapses not from neglect but from forces beyond anticipation. The palace's decay is not gradual rot but sudden, inexplicable failure, like thunder under heaven striking the unprepared.

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