咸 → 屯
Hexagram 31: Influence → Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4).
Line 1
初六 咸其拇。
Six at the beginning means: The influence shows itself in the big toe.
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
鳥鳴呼子，哺以酒脯，高樓水處，來歸其母。
A bird calls out for its young; it feeds them wine and dried meat. From the high tower above the waters; they come home to their mother.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A lake rests upon a mountain, and influence flows downward like a mother bird calling her young. She cries out to her chicks and feeds them with wine-soaked grain and dried meat — provisions far richer than ordinary fare. From a high tower by the waterside, the fledglings eventually return to their mother. The imagery is of nurture and homecoming: abundant care offered from an elevated place, and the young responding to that call across distance. From Influence to Difficulty at the Beginning, mutual responsiveness encounters the chaos of first emergence — clouds and thunder churning with the effort of new life. Yet the mother's call cuts through the confusion, anchoring the young in the knowledge of where to return when the storm subsides.
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