坎 → 姤
Hexagram 29: The Abysmal Water → Hexagram 44: Coming to Meet
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 6).
Line 3
六三 來之坎坎。險且枕。入于坎窞。勿用。
Six in the third place means: Forward and backward, abyss on abyss. In danger like this, pause at first and wait, Otherwise you will fall into a pit in the abyss. Do not act this way.
Line 4
六四 樽酒簋貳。用缶。納約自牖。終无咎。
Six in the fourth place means: A jug of wine, a bowl of rice with it; Earthen vessels Simply handed in through the Window. There is certainly no blame in this.
Line 6
上六 係用徽纆。寘于叢棘。三歲不得。凶。
Six at the top means: Bound with cords and ropes, Shut in between thorn-hedged prison walls: For three years one does not find the way. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
逐走追亡，相及扶桑，復見其鄉，使我悔喪。
Chasing the fled, pursuing the lost; catching up at Fusang. Seeing one's homeland again -- it fills me with remorse and grief.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water upon water, pursuit reaches the edge of the world. Chasing fugitives and fleeing refugees alike, the pursuit extends all the way to Fusang — the mythological tree in the far east where the sun rises and the ten sun-crows roost. Seeing one's homeland again from that impossible distance brings only regret and mourning. The verse captures exile's cruelest paradox: the homeland is visible but the return brings no joy, only the grief of what was lost. From The Abysmal to Coming to Meet, heaven's wind descends to proclaim commands across the four quarters. Yet this meeting is unwanted — the encounter at the world's edge produces sorrow, not reunion. What comes to meet us is sometimes our own grief.
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