大壯 → 困
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 47: Oppression
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 5).
Line 1
初九 壯于趾。征凶有孚。
Nine at the beginning means: Power in the toes. Continuing brings misfortune. This is certainly true.
Line 3
九三 小人用壯。君子用罔。貞厲。羝羊觸藩。羸其角。
Nine in the third place means: The inferior man works through power. The superior man does not act thus. To continue is dangerous. A goat butts against a hedge And gets its horns entangled.
Line 5
六五 喪羊于易。无悔。
Six in the fifth place means: Loses the goat with ease. No remorse.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
道濕為坑，轉陷躓彊，南國作諱，使我多畏。
The wet road becomes a pit; stumbling, one sinks deeper into the mire. The southern kingdom utters taboo words; it fills us with much fear.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven hits a road sodden with water, turning the path into a pit. One stumbles and falls, forced along against resistance. The southern kingdom invokes a taboo — 'makes a prohibited name' — spreading an atmosphere of dread. The wet road becoming a trap evokes a journey where every step sinks deeper into difficulty. From Great Power to Oppression, the lake drains dry above water in Kun: resources visible but inaccessible, the essence of futility. The transformation captures how power exercised on treacherous ground becomes its own prison. The thunder that should clear obstacles instead drives the traveler deeper into mud. Oppression is not the absence of strength but its ineffectuality against structural constraint.
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