恆 → 節
Hexagram 32: Duration → Hexagram 60: Limitation
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 5).
Line 1
初六 浚恆貞凶。无攸利。
Six at the beginning means: Seeking duration too hastily brings misfortune persistently. Nothing that would further.
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 5
六五 恒其德貞。婦人吉。夫子凶。
Six in the fifth place means: Giving duration to one's character through perseverance. This is good fortune for a woman, misfortune for a man.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
門戶乏食，困無誰告，對門不通，莫所歸急。
The household lacks food; in distress, with no one to tell. The facing doors do not open; there is no refuge for the urgent.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above wind, Duration's sustaining rhythm, meets water above lake — Limitation's defined boundaries. The household lacks food; in distress there is no one to tell. The door across the way is sealed shut; there is nowhere to turn in urgency. Duration should sustain through hardship, but here the enduring condition is hunger and isolation. Every avenue of relief is blocked: no food, no confidant, no neighbor willing to open the door. Limitation's water above the lake sets necessary boundaries, but the verse shows those boundaries as prison walls — the limits that should structure life instead lock the starving person inside. From Duration to Limitation, the persistent rhythm has become persistent deprivation, and the limits that define the situation offer no escape.
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