蹇 → 訟
Hexagram 39: Obstruction → Hexagram 6: Conflict
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 6).
Line 2
六二 王臣蹇蹇。匪躬之故。
Six in the second place means: The King's servant is beset by obstruction upon obstruction, But it is not his own fault.
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
土瘠瘦薄，培塿无柏，使我不樂。
The soil is lean and thin; the low mound bears no cypress. This makes me joyless.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water on the mountain finds no purchase in the barren soil below. The earth is thin and poor, the hillocks bare of cypresses — not even the hardiest tree can take root here. The speaker is left without joy, stranded on ground that yields nothing. Cypresses traditionally mark graves and ancestral sites; their absence signals a place unfit for habitation or remembrance. From Obstruction to Conflict, the mountain's blocked water gives way to heaven and water moving in opposite directions. The barren soil becomes a site of structural discord: what should nourish diverges from what should shelter. No planting, no growth, no monument — just the grinding friction of resources mismatched with need. Desolation deepens when even the possibility of cultivation is absent.
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