大壯 → 節
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 60: Limitation
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5).
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 4
九四 貞吉。悔亡。藩決不羸。壯于大輿之輹。
Nine in the fourth place means: Perseverance brings good fortune. Remorse disappears. The hedge opens; there is no entanglement. Power depends upon the axle of a big cart.
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
四壁无戶，三步一止，東西南北，利不可得。
Four walls without a door; three steps and one must halt. East, west, south, or north — no profit can be gained.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven hits four walls without a door — a sealed chamber from which there is no exit. Every three steps one must halt; east, west, south, north, no profit can be found in any direction. The verse describes absolute confinement, not through imprisonment but through environmental limitation: the walls are featureless, the ground permits only halting movement, and the compass offers no escape route. From Great Power to Limitation, water sits above lake in Jie: setting proper measures and deliberating on conduct. The transformation reframes the confinement: what feels like a prison is actually the structure of necessary restraint. Power without limits destroys itself; the four blank walls are not punishment but the boundaries that make meaningful action possible.
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