離 → 井
Hexagram 30: The Clinging Fire → Hexagram 48: The Well
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4, 5, 6).
Line 1
初九 履錯然。敬之。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: The footprints run crisscross. If one is seriously intent, no blame.
Line 2
六二 黃離。元吉。
Six in the second place means: Yellow light. Supreme good fortune.
Line 4
九四 突如其來如。焚如。死如。棄如。
Nine in the fourth place means: Its coming is sudden; It flames up, dies down, is thrown away.
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.
Line 6
上九 王用出征。有嘉。折首。獲匪其醜。无咎。
Nine at the top means: The king uses him to march forth and chastise. Then it is best to kill the leaders And take captive the followers. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
頭尾顛倒，不知緒處，君失其國。
Head and tail overturned; one cannot tell where the threads begin. The lord loses his kingdom.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Doubled fire meets water above wind: brilliance confronts a well whose order has been inverted. Head and tail are reversed; one cannot find the beginning of the thread. The ruler loses his state. The verse describes total disorientation — an inversion of proper sequence so thorough that governance becomes impossible. When you cannot distinguish the beginning from the end, every action tangles the situation further. From The Clinging to The Well, fire's discriminating light enters the well's deep structure of water drawn upward through wood. The well functions only when its mechanisms are correctly ordered: rope, bucket, water, surface. Reverse any element and the well fails. The ruler who loses the thread of governance is like a well drawn backward — effort produces nothing, and the state drains away.
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