蒙 → 中孚
Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly → Hexagram 61: Inner Truth
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。
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。
Six in the fifth place means: Childlike folly brings good fortune.
Trigram Changes
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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