屯 → 泰
Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning → Hexagram 11: Peace
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 5).
Line 2
六二 屯如邅如。乘馬班如。匪寇婚媾。女子貞不字。十年乃字。
Six in the second place means: Difficulties pile up. Horse and wagon part. He is not a robber; He wants to woo when the time comes. The maiden is chaste, She does not pledge herself. Ten years–then she pledges herself.
Line 3
六三 即鹿無虞。惟入于林中。君子幾不如舍。往吝。
Six in the third place means: Whoever hunts deer without the forester Only loses his way in the forest. The superior man understands the signs of the time And prefers to desist. To go on brings humiliation.
Line 5
九五 屯其膏。小貞吉。大貞凶。
Nine in the fifth place means: Difficulties in blessing. A little perseverance brings good fortune. Great perseverance brings misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
坐位失處，不能自居。賊破王邑，陰陽顛倒。
The seat is lost, its place displaced; one cannot settle in one’s own dwelling. Bandits shatter the royal city; yin and yang are overturned.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds and thunder yield to earth over heaven: initial difficulty inverts into the exchange of Peace, yet the verse describes its opposite. The ruler loses his seat and cannot maintain his position. Bandits breach the royal capital, and yin and yang are turned upside down. The irony is sharp: Tai represents heaven and earth in harmonious intercourse, but the verse names the very conditions that shatter that harmony. From Difficulty at the Beginning to Peace, the potential for cosmic balance exists, yet it remains unrealized. The throne is overturned, the capital falls, and the natural order stands inverted. Peace as a hexagram names a possibility, not a guarantee; without vigilance, its promise collapses into the chaos it was meant to transcend.
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