損 → 大畜
Hexagram 41: Decrease → Hexagram 26: Great Taming
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 3).
Line 3
六三 三人行。則損一人。一人行。則得其友。
Six in the third place means: When three people journey together, Their number decreases by one. When one man journeys alone, He finds a companion.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
嬰兒孩笑，未有所識。彼童而爭，亂我政事。
The infant laughs innocently, knowing nothing yet. Those children quarrel; they disorder my affairs of state.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain above lake gives way to mountain above heaven — Great Taming, where accumulated wisdom restrains raw power. An infant laughs innocently, knowing nothing of the world. But that childish ignorance, applied to governance, throws political affairs into chaos. The verse warns against confusing innocence with competence: the baby's charm masks its incapacity, and those who are childish yet contentious disrupt the order of the state. From Decrease to Great Taming, one mountain remains while the lake crystallizes into heaven stored within. Great Taming's charge is to accumulate knowledge of 'former words and past deeds.' The verse demonstrates the cost when this accumulation is absent: without stored wisdom, the infant-ruler's laughter becomes the prelude to institutional collapse.
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