咸 → 艮
Hexagram 31: Influence → Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 4, 5, 6).
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.
Line 6
上六 咸其輔頰舌。
Six at the top means: The influence shows itself in the jaws, cheeks, and tongue.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
順風縱火，芝艾俱死，三官集房，十子中傷。
Setting fire downwind; orchid and mugwort both die. Three officials gather in their chambers; ten sons are struck down among them.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A lake upon a mountain, but the wind carries fire indiscriminately. Setting fire downwind, both the precious lingzhi fungus and common mugwort burn together — the worthy and the worthless destroyed without distinction. Three officials gather in their chambers while ten of their sons are wounded in the conflagration. The proverb 'burning zhi and ai together' (芝艾俱焚) is a classical warning against collective punishment that destroys good and bad alike. From Influence to Keeping Still, the mountain's receptive openness doubles into twin mountains — stillness upon stillness. The verse presents what happens when one acts rashly before achieving that stillness: unleashed force, once started, cannot distinguish what it burns. Keeping Still's wisdom is to think before acting, staying within one's proper bounds.
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