恆 → 蒙
Hexagram 32: Duration → Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 6).
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.
Line 6
上六 振恆凶。
Six at the top means: Restlessness as an enduring condition brings misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
效耕釋秬，有所疑止，空虛無子。
Imitating the plowing, releasing the black millet; there is doubt and hesitation. Empty and barren, without offspring.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above wind persists, but the transformation leads to mountain above water — Youthful Folly. One imitates plowing and releases the black millet, yet hesitation intervenes and the field remains unsown. The result: emptiness, no offspring, no harvest. The verse captures a farming metaphor turned barren — the motions of cultivation are performed but abandoned midway, yielding nothing. Duration should sustain effort through completion, yet here the steady pattern breaks into the fog of indecision. From Duration to Youthful Folly, the spring beneath the mountain cannot find its path. The farmer who second-guesses every furrow never plants, and the continuity that should produce abundance instead generates only a vacant courtyard.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store