屯 → 困
Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning → Hexagram 47: Oppression
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4).
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 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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
跛躓未起，先利後市，不得鹿子。
Stumbling, not yet risen; first profit, then market. One does not get the fawn.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds and thunder plunge into lake over water: initial difficulty sinks into genuine oppression. Stumbling and lame, one has not yet risen. The profit came first, the market came later, but in the end the deer fawn is not captured. The sequence inverts proper order: one calculates gain before establishing the means to achieve it, and the quarry escapes. The lame hunter who cannot stand has no chance against swift prey. From Difficulty at the Beginning to Oppression, the lake has drained its water — resources are exhausted and the container sits empty. Kun's image is the gentleman who stakes his life on his purpose, but here there is no dignity in the predicament, only miscalculation compounding physical incapacity. The deer escapes because the hunter was never in a position to catch it.
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