家人 → 訟
Hexagram 37: The Family → Hexagram 6: Conflict
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4).
Line 1
初九 閑有家。悔亡。
Nine at the beginning means: Firm seclusion within the family. Remorse disappears.
Line 2
六二 无攸遂。在中饋。貞吉。
Six in the second place means: She should not follow her whims. She must attend within to the food. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 3
九三 家人嗃嗃。悔厲吉。婦子嘻嘻。終吝。
Nine in the third place means: When tempers flare up in the family, Too great severity brings remorse. Good fortune nonetheless. When woman and child dally and laugh It leads in the end to humiliation.
Line 4
六四 富家大吉。
Six in the fourth place means: She is the treasure of the house. Great good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
耄老蒙鈍，不見東西。少者弗慕，君不與謀。懸輿致仕，退歸里居。
Aged and dull of mind, he cannot tell east from west. The young do not admire him; the lord will not take his counsel. He hangs up his carriage and retires from office, withdrawing to dwell in his village.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind from fire once warmed the household, but now the flame gutters low. An aged official, dull and confused, can no longer distinguish east from west. The young do not admire him; the ruler excludes him from counsel. He suspends his carriage — the formal gesture of retirement — and withdraws to his home village. The phrase 'suspending the carriage' (懸輿致仕) is a Han-dynasty formula for honorable resignation at seventy. Yet the tone here is melancholy rather than celebratory: this is not a sage retiring in glory but a man pushed aside by declining faculties. From The Family to Conflict, heaven and water move in opposite directions. The old man's withdrawal mirrors this divergence — what once moved together now pulls apart, and the dignity of retirement barely conceals the sting of irrelevance.
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