坎 → 升

Commentary

Water upon water, isolation compounds sorrow. The desolate four — widower, widow, orphan, solitary elder — bear the thinnest fate and bitterest fortune. Entering the palace, there is no wife; the figure named Wuzi weeps in grief. The palace without a consort is a household without its center, and the sorrow of Wuzi (possibly a historical or literary figure whose identity remains uncertain) deepens the sense of irrevocable loss. From The Abysmal to Pushing Upward, wood should grow steadily within the earth, rising by small steps toward height. Yet this verse shows the ground from which nothing grows — the barren soil of absolute loneliness where no upward movement begins.