解 → 節
Hexagram 40: Deliverance → Hexagram 60: Limitation
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 5).
Line 1
初六 无咎。
Six at the beginning means: Without blame.
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 5
六五 君子維有解。吉。有孚于小人。
Six in the fifth place means: If only the superior man can deliver himself, It brings good fortune. Thus he proves to inferior men that he is in earnest.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
左眇右盲，目視不明。下民多孽，君失其常。
The left eye squints, the right eye is blind; his gaze cannot see clearly. The common folk multiply their offenses; the ruler loses his constancy.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder over water constricts into water above the lake — the measured restraint of Limitation. The left eye is squinting, the right eye is blind; vision fails entirely. The common people commit many sins, and the ruler loses his constancy. The verse describes the failure of governance as a failure of perception: when the ruler cannot see clearly, neither moral limits nor political boundaries hold. From Deliverance to Limitation, the freed society desperately needs boundaries but has lost the faculty to set them. Water above the lake defines proper measure, but here the measure-maker is blind. Without clear sight, limitation becomes arbitrary and the people suffer under rules that have lost their rationale.
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