屯 → 訟
Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning → Hexagram 6: Conflict
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 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 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
泥津汙辱，棄捐溝瀆。所共笑哭，終不顯錄。
Muddied and soiled in filth; cast away in ditches and drains. An object of shared ridicule and tears; in the end, never distinguished or recorded.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds and thunder descend into heaven and water moving apart: initial struggle hardens into unresolvable contention. Mired in muddy crossings and humiliated, the subject is discarded into ditches and drains. Others laugh and weep over the spectacle, but in the end no recognition ever comes. The imagery is one of utter social degradation: talent cast into the gutter, passed over and forgotten. From Difficulty at the Beginning to Conflict, the transformation reveals how initial disorder, left unresolved, festers into permanent estrangement. Heaven and water pull in opposite directions, and what began as birth-pangs crystallizes into irreconcilable opposition, where the deserving remain unrecorded and the undeserving prevail.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store