屯 → 坤
Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 5).
Line 1
初九 磐桓。利居貞。利建侯。
Nine at the beginning means: Hesitation and hindrance. It furthers one to remain persevering. It furthers one to appoint helpers.
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
採薪得麟，大命隕顛。豪雄爭名，天下四分。
Gathering firewood, one finds a qilin; the great mandate falls and overturns. Heroes contend for fame; the realm splits into four.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds and thunder struggle as the earth opens wide beneath. A woodcutter gathering fuel captures a qilin, and the great mandate collapses. This directly references the Western Hunt of 481 BC, when a charioteer of the Shusun clan snared a qilin during a hunt in the Great Marsh. Confucius identified the creature and wept: 'My Way is exhausted!' The qilin, harbinger of sage rule, appearing in a broken age signaled the end of the Spring and Autumn moral order. Heroes contend for fame and the realm splits into four. From Difficulty at the Beginning to The Receptive, initial struggle dissolves into fragmented earth: when the cosmic omen is mishandled, creative potential scatters into passive disunity, and no single will can hold the center.
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