恆 → 坤
Hexagram 32: Duration → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4).
Line 2
九二 悔亡。
Nine in the second place means: Remorse disappears.
Line 3
九三 不恆其德。或承之羞。貞吝。
Nine in the third place means: He who does not give duration to his character Meets with disgrace. Persistent humiliation.
Line 4
九四 田无禽。
Nine in the fourth place means: No game in the field.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
燕雀衰老,悲鴻入海,憂不在鄉,差池其羽。
Sparrows and swallows grow old; the grieving swan enters the sea. Sorrow lies not in the homeland; its wing-feathers fall uneven.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above wind transforms into doubled earth — the Receptive's boundless yielding. Sparrows and swallows grow old and feeble; a grieving swan plunges into the sea. Sorrow lies not in the homeland but abroad, and the bird's feathers are uneven, recalling the Shijing ode where the swallow's ragged pinions signal a woman's difficult journey. Duration's steady rhythm dissolves into earth's passive vastness: what once held firm now drifts without anchor. The aging birds lose their power of flight; the swan's grief drives it to exile over open water. From Duration to the Receptive, constancy gives way to exhaustion — the enduring pattern has run its course, and what remains is the sorrow of diminished capacity in a world too vast to navigate alone.
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