蒙 → 乾
Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly → Hexagram 1: The Creative
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 5).
Line 1
初六 發蒙。利用刑人。用說桎梏。以往吝。
Six at the beginning means: To make a fool develop It furthers one to apply discipline. The fetters should be removed. To go on in this way bring humiliation.
Line 3
六三 勿用取女。見金夫。不有躬。无攸利。
Six in the third place means: Take not a maiden who, when she sees a man of bronze, Loses possession of herself. Nothing furthers.
Line 4
六四 困蒙。吝。
Six in the fourth place means: Entangled folly bring humiliation.
Line 5
六五 童蒙。吉。
Six in the fifth place means: Childlike folly brings good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
海為水王，聰聖且明。百流歸德，無有叛逆，常饒優足。
The sea is king of all waters, wise and brilliant. A hundred streams return to its virtue; none rebel or resist. Always abundant and sufficient.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A spring emerges beneath the mountain, seeking its way through darkness toward clarity. The sea reigns as king of all waters: wise, perceptive, and luminous. Every river and stream flows toward it in natural allegiance, none rebelling, and abundance never fails. The verse draws on the Daodejing's image of the sea as ruler precisely because it occupies the lowest position — all waters descend to it of their own accord. From Youthful Folly to the Creative, the transformation traces how naive potential, guided by receptive humility rather than force, awakens into the self-generating power of heaven. The spring that begins in mountain darkness gathers tributaries until it becomes the sovereign ocean: leadership achieved not through conquest but through the gravity of accumulated virtue.
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