蹇 → 无妄
Hexagram 39: Obstruction → Hexagram 25: Innocence
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 6).
Line 1
初六 往蹇來譽。
Six at the beginning means: Going leads to obstructions, Coming meets with praise.
Line 3
九三 往蹇來反。
Nine in the third place means: Going leads to obstructions; Hence he comes back.
Line 4
六四 往蹇來連。
Six in the fourth place means: Going leads to obstructions, Coming leads to union.
Line 6
上六 往蹇來碩。吉。利見大人。
Six at the top means: Going leads to obstructions, Coming leads to great good fortune. It furthers one to see the great man.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
林麓山藪，非人所處。鳥獸无禮，使我心苦。
Forest thickets and mountain marshes, no place for people to dwell. Birds and beasts lack propriety; they cause my heart to suffer.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water on the mountain drives the traveler into untamed wilderness. Dense forests and mountain marshes — places unfit for human habitation. Birds and beasts know no propriety, and their lawlessness makes the speaker's heart bitter. The verse captures exile in its rawest form: not political banishment but the existential anguish of being cast into a world that operates without human norms. From Obstruction to Innocence, thunder rolls beneath heaven and all things receive their true nature. Innocence (Wuwang) means acting without ulterior motive, in alignment with heaven's spontaneous order. Yet the exile experiences the wild's innocence as cruelty — nature is 'without delusion' precisely because it has no morality. The transformation reveals innocence's shadow: in a world of pure spontaneity, the cultivated person finds only suffering.
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