Hexagram 38: Opposition → Hexagram 56: The Wanderer

Opposition
Fire / Lake
The Wanderer
Fire / Mountain
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3).

Line 1

初九 悔亡。喪馬勿逐自復。見惡人。无咎。

huǐregret(s)
wángpass
sàng(a
horse
do not
zhú(be) pursue
(and) of
(it) returns
jiàn(to
è(the) evil
rén(in) people
is not
jiùto blame

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 2

九二 遇主于巷。无咎。

meeting (with)
zhǔ(a
in
xiàngalley
no
jiùblame

Nine in the second place means: One meets his lord in a narrow street. No blame.

Line 3

六三 見輿曳。其牛掣。其人天且劓。无初有終。

jiànseeing
輿(a
(being) held up
its
niúoxen
chèhindered
its
rénoccupant's
tiānhead shaved (bald to heaven)
qiěand (even
(his
regardless of
chū(a
yǒu(but) there is
zhōng(a

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.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramFire Fire
Lower TrigramLake MountainThe Joyous → Keeping Still

Yilin Verse

響像无形,骨體不成。微行衰索,消滅無名。

Echoes and reflections without form; flesh and bone never take shape. Faint and declining, fading away; extinguished and nameless.

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

Commentary

Fire above the lake, and what should be visible dissolves into nothing. Echoes without form, a skeleton without flesh — the body never coalesces into anything tangible. Activity dwindles to a thread, withering and fraying, until the name itself is extinguished without trace. The verse describes a process of radical dematerialization: not destruction but non-formation, as though existence itself failed to take hold. From Opposition to The Wanderer, fire burns upon the mountain, and the gentleman applies punishments with careful clarity, never prolonging imprisonment. The transformation from formlessness to wandering suggests that what cannot take root in one place must drift — the wanderer at least has a body, however transient, while this verse depicts something that never even achieved that much.

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