晉 → 復
Hexagram 35: Progress → Hexagram 24: Return
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 6).
Line 1
初六 晉如摧如。貞吉。罔孚。裕无咎。
Six at the beginning means: Progressing, but turned back. Perseverance brings good fortune. If one meets with no confidence, one should remain calm. No mistake.
Line 4
九四 晉如鼫鼠。貞厲。
Nine in the fourth place means: Progress like a hamster. Perseverance brings danger.
Line 6
上九 晉其角。維用伐邑。厲吉无咎。貞吝。
Nine at the top means: Making progress with the horns is permissible Only for the purpose of punishing one's own city. To be conscious of danger brings good fortune. No blame. Perseverance brings humiliation.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
賦歛重數，政為民賊，杼軸空虛，家去其室。
Taxes levied again and again; governance becomes the people’s thief. The loom and shuttle stand empty; families abandon their homes.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire rises above the earth, but the light illuminates misgovernance. Taxes are levied repeatedly without restraint, governance becomes a plague upon the people. The loom shuttles are empty, the warp and weft exhausted — households abandon their homes entirely. The verse condemns extractive rule: the state drains its subjects until nothing remains, not even the thread on the loom. 'Zhuzhou kongxu' (杼軸空虛) is a classical image of economic ruin — when a family's loom stands empty, they have literally nothing left to produce. From Progress to Return, the transformation offers the only remedy. Thunder stirs within the earth: the solstice moment when the cycle begins again. After total depletion, the only path forward is to return to the root — abolish oppressive levies and let the people recover.
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