蒙 → 鼎
Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly → Hexagram 50: The Cauldron
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 3, 4).
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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
攫飯把肉，以就口食。所往必得，無有虛乏。
Snatching rice, grasping meat; bringing it straight to the mouth to eat. Wherever one goes, one surely obtains; there is never want or lack.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A spring beneath the mountain finds its hands full of nourishment. One snatches rice and grabs meat, bringing it straight to the mouth. Wherever one goes, gain is certain; there is no emptiness or want. The imagery is bluntly physical — not the elegance of a banquet but the urgency of hands seizing food. Yet the tone is joyful: abundance so available it needs no ceremony. From Youthful Folly to The Cauldron, the transformation refines crude sustenance into something sacred. Fire above wood is the image of cooking — transforming raw material into civilized nourishment. The naif begins by grabbing food with bare hands; the cauldron teaches that the same ingredients, properly prepared, become an offering fit for heaven.
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