家人

Hexagram 37: The Family → Hexagram 56: The Wanderer

家人
The Family
Wind / Fire
The Wanderer
Fire / Mountain
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 5).

Line 1

初九 閑有家。悔亡。

xiándiscipline
yǒuhold
jiā(a
huǐregret(s)
wángpass

Nine at the beginning means: Firm seclusion within the family. Remorse disappears.

Line 4

六四 富家大吉。

enriching
jiā(the) family
much
promise

Six in the fourth place means: She is the treasure of the house. Great good fortune.

Line 5

九五 王假有家。勿恤吉。

wáng(as
jiǎcomes
yǒuhis
jiāfamily
do not
be anxious
(the) promise

Nine in the fifth place means: As a king he approaches his family. Fear not. Good fortune.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramWind FireThe Gentle → The Clinging
Lower TrigramFire MountainThe Clinging → Keeping Still

Yilin Verse

山陵丘墓,魂魄室屋。精光竭盡,長臥无覺。

Hills and barrows, tombs and graves; the dwelling place of souls. The vital light is spent entirely; he lies long in sleep without waking.

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

Commentary

Wind from fire once animated the household, but now all vital energy has departed. Mounds and hillside tombs become the soul's dwelling; the spirit's light is utterly exhausted. The body lies in eternal sleep, never to wake. The verse is a meditation on death stripped of all consolation — no immortality, no reunion, no transformation, just the quiet extinction of consciousness. The tomb as 'soul's chamber' inverts the living household: the family home becomes a burial mound. From The Family to The Wanderer, fire burns atop the mountain as the traveler passes through without settling. The Wanderer is always in transit, never at home. Death is the ultimate wandering — the soul departs its familiar dwelling and enters a journey from which there is no return, the light extinguished and the family left behind.

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