恆 → 夬

Commentary

Thunder above wind, Duration's steady hold, breaks into lake above heaven — Breakthrough's decisive rupture. Quarreling over a chicken, one loses a sheep; the gold pouch goes missing, and profits cannot be sustained. This echoes the hardship of Confucius stranded between Chen and Cai. The proverb 'fighting over a chicken, losing a sheep' captures the folly of petty disputes that cost far more than the prize at stake. The lost gold pouch compounds the image of resources frittered away through misplaced contention. The reference to 'Chen and Cai's trouble' (陳蔡之患) directly invokes Confucius's seven days without food between those two states. From Duration to Breakthrough, the tension that should release cleanly instead ruptures destructively — the breakthrough scatters more than it frees.