家人 → 賁
Hexagram 37: The Family → Hexagram 22: Grace
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 5).
Line 5
九五 王假有家。勿恤吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: As a king he approaches his family. Fear not. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
畫龍頭頸,文章不成。甘言美語,詭辭無名。
He paints the dragon's head and neck, but the pattern is never completed. Sweet words and fine phrases; deceitful speech without substance.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind from fire gives form to the family's expression, but here form remains incomplete. A dragon's head and neck are painted, yet the composition never coheres into a finished work. Sweet words and beautiful phrases sound impressive, but the elaborate rhetoric has no substance — a name without content. The image of the unfinished dragon is vivid: all flourish at the beginning, trailing off into nothing. From The Family to Grace, fire beneath the mountain adorns but does not transform. Grace is surface beauty, the aesthetic polish that makes things presentable. Yet even Grace requires completion; an ornament that dissolves halfway through is worse than plainness. The verse warns against mistaking eloquent beginnings for genuine accomplishment — the dragon must have a body as well as a head.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store