咸 → 渙
Hexagram 31: Influence → Hexagram 59: Dispersion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 6).
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.
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
采薇出車，魚麗思初，上下從急，君子免憂。
Picking fern shoots, sending forth chariots; fish nets recall the beginning. Above and below press on in haste; the gentleman is spared from worry.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A lake upon a mountain, and the Shijing's military poems are summoned as rallying cries. 'Gathering ferns' (采薇) is the soldier's lament; 'dispatching chariots' (出車) is the mobilization ode; 'fish in formation' (魚麗) recalls the orderly procession of plenty that follows victory. Together they trace the full arc of military campaign: recruitment, deployment, and the restored prosperity that validates the sacrifice. When superiors and inferiors both respond with urgency to the crisis, the gentleman is freed from worry. From Influence to Dispersion, the mountain's receptive feeling transforms into wind moving over water — the scattering of what is frozen, the dissolution of blockages. The poems' sequence mirrors Dispersion's dynamic: concentrated suffering is scattered through decisive collective action, and what was rigid with fear flows free again.
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