大壯 → 師
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 7: The Army
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4).
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 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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
鹿下西山，欲歸其群，逢羿箭鋒，死於矢端。
A deer descends the western mountain, longing to rejoin its herd. It meets the arrow-point of Yi; it dies upon the shaft.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven drives the deer down the western mountain, seeking to rejoin its herd. But the legendary Archer Yi waits with drawn bow, and the deer meets its end on the arrow's point. Yi's name evokes both the mythological sun-shooter and the historical lord of the Youqiong clan — in either case, an embodiment of lethal precision. The deer's longing for its group becomes the very impulse that delivers it into danger. From Great Power to the Army, the transformation is stark: earth contains water in Shi, the disciplined force hidden within the landscape. What appeared as open terrain conceals a military trap. Power exercised without reconnaissance meets organized, patient lethality.
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