咸 → 坤
Hexagram 31: Influence → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5).
Line 3
九三 咸其股。執其隨。往吝。
Nine in the third place means: The influence shows itself in the thighs. Holds to that which follows it. To continue is humiliating.
Line 4
九四 貞吉悔亡。憧憧往來。朋從爾思。
Nine in the fourth place means: Perseverance brings good fortune. Remorse disappears. If a man is agitated in mind, And his thoughts go hither and thither, Only those friends On whom he fixes his conscious thoughts Will follow.
Line 5
九五 咸其脢。无悔。
Nine in the fifth place means: The influence shows itself in the back of the neck. No remorse.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
心惡來怪，衝衝何懼？顏伯子騫，尼父聖母。
The heart despises what comes strange; what fear in all this tumult? Yan Bo and Ziqian; Confucius and his sage mother.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A lake upon a mountain opens the heart to unexpected influence. Something fearsome approaches — the mind recoils at the strange — yet what is there truly to dread? The verse names Yan Bo (顏伯), likely Yan Wuyou, father of Confucius's beloved disciple Yan Hui, and Ziqian (子騫), the disciple Min Ziqian, renowned for his filial piety. 'Father Ni' is Confucius himself, and 'sage mother' honors the maternal virtue that nurtured these men. Together they form a constellation of Confucian moral exemplars who met adversity without flinching. From Influence to the Receptive, the lake's mutual feeling descends into earth's boundless capacity: the open heart, once startled by the uncanny, finds its ground in the receptive stillness of maternal devotion and accumulated virtue.
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