咸 → 升
Hexagram 31: Influence → Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 5).
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 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
南與凶俱，破車失襦，西行無袴，亡其寶賂。
Going south with misfortune; the cart breaks, the jacket is lost. Traveling west without trousers; losing one's precious goods.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A lake upon a mountain, but the southward journey brings only ruin. Traveling south alongside misfortune, the cart breaks and the jacket is lost. Heading west, one has no trousers, and treasures and bribes vanish along the way. Every direction strips the traveler of another possession: vehicle, clothing, wealth — the progressive loss of all that sustains a journey. From Influence to Pushing Upward, the mountain's receptive openness becomes the earth above wind, the image of a tree growing slowly from below. Pushing Upward counsels steady, incremental rise through favorable conditions. Yet the verse presents the opposite: forced movement in the wrong direction, where each step upward costs more than the last. Without proper conditions, ascent becomes mere hemorrhage.
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