蹇 → 益
Hexagram 39: Obstruction → Hexagram 42: Increase
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 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 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
行役未已，新事復起。姬姜勞苦，不得休止。
The campaign is not yet finished; new affairs arise again. The Ji and Jiang women toil bitterly, never given rest.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water on the mountain piles task upon unfinished task. Military service has not yet ended when new obligations arise. The women of the Ji and Jiang clans — aristocratic surnames signifying the household's female members — toil ceaselessly without rest. The verse names exhaustion as a compounding condition: it is not one hardship but the layering of demands before the previous ones are resolved that breaks the spirit. From Obstruction to Increase, wind and thunder cooperate as heaven supplements what is deficient below. Increase promises aid flowing downward — the opposite of the verse's unrelenting extraction. The transformation implies that the cure for compounded obstruction is deliberate, top-down support: someone must intervene to lighten the burden, or the women will labor until they break.
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