離 → 履
Hexagram 30: The Clinging Fire → Hexagram 10: Treading
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 5).
Line 2
六二 黃離。元吉。
Six in the second place means: Yellow light. Supreme good fortune.
Line 3
九三 日昃之離。不鼓缶而歌。則大耋之嗟。凶。
Nine in the third place means: In the light of the setting sun, Men either beat the pot and sing Or loudly bewail the approach of old age. Misfortune.
Line 5
六五 出涕沱若。戚嗟若。吉。
Six in the fifth place means: Tears in floods, sighing and lamenting. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
出令不勝,反為大災,強不克弱,君受其憂。
Issuing commands that cannot prevail; turning instead to great calamity. The strong cannot subdue the weak; the lord receives the sorrow.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Doubled fire meets heaven above the lake: brilliance oversteps its proper boundary. Commands are issued but cannot prevail; they rebound as great calamity. The strong fail to subdue the weak, and the ruler bears the consequences. The verse warns against authority exercised without proper standing. When edicts lack moral weight, enforcement collapses and the issuer suffers more than the target. From The Clinging to Treading, fire's assertive light encounters the protocol of treading upon a tiger's tail. The image of heaven over lake defines proper hierarchy, but the verse shows what happens when one treads carelessly: the tiger turns. Power projected without legitimacy does not merely fail; it transforms into the very disaster it sought to prevent.
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