咸 → 坎
Hexagram 31: Influence → Hexagram 29: The Abysmal Water
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4).
Line 2
六二 咸其腓。凶。居吉。
Six in the second place means: The influence shows itself in the calves of the legs. Misfortune. Tarrying brings good fortune.
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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
大尾小頭，重不可搖。上弱下強，陰制其雄。
Great tail, small head; heavy and immovable. The upper is weak, the lower strong; yin controls the male.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A lake upon a mountain, but the body politic is grotesquely misshapen. A creature with a huge tail and tiny head is too heavy to move — the base overpowers the summit. The strong dominate from below while the nominal authority above grows weak, and yin controls what should be yang's domain. This echoes the Zuo Zhuan's warning of 'a tail too large to wag': when subordinates or peripheral forces become too powerful, the center loses control. From Influence to the Abysmal, the mountain's open receptivity becomes water upon water — doubled danger with no solid ground. The top-heavy inversion described is precisely the condition that produces the Abysmal's repeated peril: when leadership is hollow and the base ungovernable, every step forward sinks deeper into hazard.
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