睽 → 夬
Hexagram 38: Opposition → Hexagram 43: Breakthrough
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 5, 6).
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 5
六五 悔亡。厥宗噬膚。往何咎。
Six in the fifth place means: Remorse disappears. The companion bites his way through the wrappings. If one goes to him, How could it be a mistake?
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
折若閉目，不見稚叔。三足孤烏，遠去家室。
Snapping shut, closing the eyes; the young and the old are not seen. The three-legged solitary crow; far from home it goes.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire above the lake, and the eyes close upon a world of loss. Folding up like shutting one's eyes, the young nephew or uncle — the 'zhishu' — can no longer be seen. The three-legged crow, solar emblem dwelling within the sun, has flown far from home. Both images converge on the theme of severed connection: a family member vanishes from sight, and the sun-bird itself departs its rightful place. The three-legged crow's exile from the sun is a cosmic version of domestic estrangement. From Opposition to Breakthrough, the lake ascends to heaven and the gentleman distributes blessings to those below. The transformation from sealed-eyed loss to decisive resolution suggests that the way to recover what has been lost is through forceful, generous action — breaking through the barrier rather than mourning behind closed eyes.
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