屯 → 大畜
Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning → Hexagram 26: Great Taming
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 5, 6).
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.
Line 6
上六 乘馬班如。泣血漣如。
Six at the top means: Horse and wagon part. Bloody tears flow.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
剋身潔己，逢禹巡狩。錫我玄珪，拜受福佑。
Disciplining the body, purifying oneself; one meets Yu on his royal tour. He bestows a dark jade tablet; kneeling, one receives blessing and protection.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds and thunder yield to heaven stored within the mountain: initial difficulty transforms into accumulated virtue. One disciplines the body and purifies the self, then encounters Yu the Great on his royal inspection tour. Yu bestows a dark jade tablet, and the recipient bows to accept this blessing. Yu's inspection tours were legendary acts of governance: he traveled the realm assessing the virtue of local rulers, rewarding the worthy with jade insignia of rank. The dark jade tablet (xuangui) was a symbol of heaven's mandate conferred upon the deserving. From Difficulty at the Beginning to Great Taming, the transformation shows that self-cultivation in adversity attracts recognition from the highest authority. Heaven stored within the mountain preserves virtue until the sage-king arrives to validate it.
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