屯 → 姤
Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning → Hexagram 44: Coming to Meet
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 6).
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 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 4
六四 乘馬班如。求婚媾。往吉。无不利。
Six in the fourth place means: Horse and wagon part. Strive for union. To go brings good fortune. Everything acts to further.
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
東徙不時，觸患離憂。井泥無濡，思叔舊居。
Moving east at the wrong time, meeting calamity and parting from joy. The well turns to mud, yielding no moisture; one longs for uncle’s old home.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds and thunder transform into heaven above wind: initial difficulty encounters an unexpected intrusion. Moving east at the wrong time, one triggers calamity and falls into grief. The well is muddy and provides no moisture, and the exile thinks longingly of his uncle's old dwelling. The imagery of a fouled well that cannot nourish directly quotes the I-Ching's Jing hexagram, where a muddy well represents neglected institutional resources. From Difficulty at the Beginning to Coming to Meet, heaven above wind issues commands that reach every quarter, but the encounter here is unwelcome. Gou represents the unexpected meeting of yin and yang; the verse shows that such encounters, when ill-timed, bring only displacement. The exile's nostalgia for his former home confirms that the new situation offers nothing to sustain him.
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