蒙 → 屯
Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly → Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 5, 6).
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 2
九二 包蒙吉。納婦吉。子克家。
Nine in the second place means: To bear with fools in kindliness brings good fortune. To know how to take women Brings good fortune. The son is capable of taking charge of the household.
Line 5
六五 童蒙。吉。
Six in the fifth place means: Childlike folly brings good fortune.
Line 6
上九 擊蒙。不利為寇。利禦寇。
Nine at the top means: In punishing folly It does not further one To commit transgressions. The only thing that furthers Is to prevent transgressions.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
安息康居，異國穹廬。非吾習俗，使我心憂。
Anxi, Kangju—foreign lands of domed tents. These are not my customs; they fill my heart with sorrow.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A spring emerges beneath the mountain only to find itself in alien terrain. Anxi and Kangju — Parthia and Sogdiana — are distant Central Asian kingdoms known to Han-dynasty China through the Silk Road. Their felt tents rise on foreign soil, customs utterly unlike one's own, stirring deep unease. The verse captures the disorientation of exile among nomadic peoples, where even the sky feels different. From Youthful Folly to Difficulty at the Beginning, the transformation mirrors this estrangement: the naive traveler steps out of sheltered ignorance into a world of unfamiliar dangers. Thunder rumbles beneath gathering clouds, and the spring that once flowed freely now struggles to find its course through unknown ground.
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