解 → 艮
Hexagram 40: Deliverance → Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 6).
Line 2
九二 田獲三狐。得黃矢。貞吉。
Nine in the second place means: One kills three foxes in the field And receives a yellow arrow. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 3
六三 負且乘。致寇至。貞吝。
Six in the third place means: If a man carries a burden on his back And nonetheless rides in a carriage, He thereby encourages robbers to draw near. Perseverance leads to humiliation.
Line 4
九四 解而拇。朋至斯孚。
Nine in the fourth place means: Deliver yourself from your great toe. Then the companion comes, And him you can trust.
Line 6
上六 公用射隼于高墉之上。獲之无不利。
Six at the top means: The prince shoots at a hawk on a high wall. He kills it. Everything serves to further.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
跛踦相隨，日莫牛罷。陵遲後旅，失利亡雌。
Lame and halting, they follow each other; as day ends, the ox is spent. Falling behind the distant travelers, they lose their profit and their mate.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder over water stills into doubled mountain — the absolute stillness of Keeping Still. Lame and limping, they follow each other; at dusk the ox is exhausted. Falling behind the traveling party, one loses profit and mate alike. The verse describes a caravan in decline: the crippled leading the crippled, the work-beast spent, the group fragmenting as evening falls. Everything slows to a halt. From Deliverance to Keeping Still, the storm's energy dissipates into immobility. The mountain thinks not beyond its own position; here that stillness is involuntary rather than contemplative. The freed travelers find they can go no further — not because they choose to stop, but because capacity is exhausted.
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