睽 → 恆
Hexagram 38: Opposition → Hexagram 32: Duration
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 6).
Line 1
初九 悔亡。喪馬勿逐自復。見惡人。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: Remorse disappears. If you lose your horse, do not run after it; It will come back of its own accord. When you see evil people, Guard yourself against mistakes.
Line 3
六三 見輿曳。其牛掣。其人天且劓。无初有終。
Six in the third place means: One sees the wagon dragged back, The oxen halted, A man's hair and nose cut off. Not a good beginning, but a good end.
Line 6
上九 睽孤。見豕負塗。載鬼一車。先張之弧。後說之弧。匪寇婚媾。往遇雨則吉。
Nine at the top means: Isolated through opposition, One sees one's companion as a pig covered with dirt, As a wagon full of devils. First one draws a bow against him, then one lays the bow aside. He is not a robber; he will woo at the right time. As one goes, rain falls; then good fortune comes.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
孟巳乙丑,哀呼尼父。明德訖終,亂害滋起。
In the mengsi year, the yichou month; mournful cries for the sage Confucius. Bright virtue has reached its end; disorder and harm now arise.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire above the lake, and a mournful cry echoes across the ages. On a meng-si or yi-chou day, voices wail for 'Father Ni' — Confucius. The Master's luminous virtue has reached its end, and in its wake, chaos and harm multiply without restraint. Confucius died in 479 BC, and the Yilin treats this event as the hinge of civilization: once the sage's guiding light extinguished, the moral order disintegrated. The Spring and Autumn Annals cease, and the world enters darkness. From Opposition to Duration, thunder and wind reinforce each other endlessly as the gentleman stands firm without shifting ground. The transformation insists that what endures is not the sage's physical life but the principled stance he embodied — duration through unwavering commitment.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store