中孚

Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly → Hexagram 61: Inner Truth

Youthful Folly
Mountain / Water
中孚
Inner Truth
Wind / Lake
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 5).

Line 1

初六 發蒙。利用刑人。用說桎梏。以往吝。

educating
méngthe inexperienced
worthwhile
yòngand useful
xíngto sanction
rénanother
yòngif used
shuōto remove
zhìshackles
handcuffs
but for this
wǎngto continue
lìndisgrace

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 5

六五 童蒙。吉。

tóngyoung
ménginexperienced
promising

Six in the fifth place means: Childlike folly brings good fortune.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramMountain WindKeeping Still → The Gentle
Lower TrigramWater LakeThe Deep → The Joyous

Yilin Verse

早凋被霜,花葉不長。非時為災,家受其殃。

Struck early by frost; flowers and leaves do not grow. Untimely disaster comes; the household bears its ruin.

— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE

Commentary

A spring beneath the mountain is blighted by untimely frost. Plants wither early, struck by frost before their season; flowers and leaves cannot grow. Disaster arrives at the wrong time, and the household bears the calamity. The verse captures the cruelty of misaligned timing — frost in spring, punishment before the crime, death before maturity. Nature's calendar has been violated, and everything planted perishes. From Youthful Folly to Inner Truth, the transformation is poignant. Wind over the lake penetrates to the core; the gentleman deliberates on criminal cases and delays executions. Inner Truth demands that judgment be carefully timed. The untimely frost is a failure of cosmic sincerity: when heaven's truth is distorted, even the innocent suffer before their time.

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