晉 → 小畜
Hexagram 35: Progress → Hexagram 9: Small Taming
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
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 2
六二 晉如愁如。貞吉。受茲介福。于其王母。
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。
Six in the third place means: All are in accord. Remorse disappears.
Line 4
九四 晉如鼫鼠。貞厲。
Nine in the fourth place means: Progress like a hamster. Perseverance brings danger.
Line 5
六五 悔亡。失得勿恤。往吉无不利。
Six in the fifth place means: Remorse disappears. Take not gain and loss to heart. Undertakings bring good fortune. Everything serves to further.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
三嬴六罷，不能越跪，東賈失馬，往反勞苦。
Three wins and six defeats; unable even to kneel upright. The eastern merchant loses his horse; going and returning, nothing but toil and hardship.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire rises above the earth, but the advance quickly exhausts itself. Three wins and six losses — more defeats than victories — the figure cannot even rise from kneeling. A merchant heading east loses his horse, and the journey back and forth brings only toil and suffering. The arithmetic of this verse is bleak: effort doubled, returns halved. The eastbound trader stripped of his mount must walk home empty-handed. From Progress to Small Taming, the transformation sharpens the lesson. Wind moves across heaven, gently restraining — but here the restraint is too feeble to hold anything together. Small Taming's gentle accumulation cannot offset compounding losses. When the momentum of advance outpaces one's actual resources, even minor setbacks cascade into ruin.
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