Hexagram 35: Progress → Hexagram 32: Duration

Progress
Fire / Earth
Duration
Thunder / Wind
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 6).

Line 2

六二 晉如愁如。貞吉。受茲介福。于其王母。

jìn^ expansion
it may seem that v
chóu^ anxious
is to be
zhēnbut persistence
is promising
shòuaccept
these present
jièboundary
as (if
from
one's (own)
wánggrand-
mother [i.e. graciously and gratefully]

Six in the second place means: Progressing, but in sorrow. Perseverance brings good fortune. Then one obtains great happiness from one's ancestress.

Line 3

六三 眾允悔亡。

zhòngmany
yǔnpermission
huǐregret(s)
wángpass

Six in the third place means: All are in accord. Remorse disappears.

Line 6

上九 晉其角。維用伐邑。厲吉无咎。貞吝。

jìnadvancing
one's
jiǎohorns
wéilimit
yòngthis practice
to subjugate
of the home town
that harsh
is promising
is not
jiùto be blamed
zhēnbut persistence
lìnis embarrassment

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

Upper TrigramFire ThunderThe Clinging → The Arousing
Lower TrigramEarth WindThe Receptive → The Gentle

Yilin Verse

敝笱在梁,不能得魚,望貧千里,所至空虛。

A tattered fish trap on the weir; it cannot catch a fish. Gazing across a thousand li of poverty; wherever one arrives, only emptiness.

— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE

Commentary

Fire rises above the earth, but the fish trap set upon the weir is broken — no fish can be caught. The Shijing ode 'Bi Gou' describes a torn net on the dam through which fish swim freely, satirizing the inability to restrain those who should be governed. Here, the verse extends the metaphor: gazing toward wealth a thousand li away, arriving only at emptiness. Ambition without functional tools yields nothing. From Progress to Duration, the transformation cuts deep. Thunder and wind together create enduring patterns, but duration without substance is merely stubbornness. A broken trap set day after day on the same weir is not persistence — it is the refusal to recognize that one's method has failed. Endurance must be paired with competence.

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