萃 → 履
Hexagram 45: Gathering Together → Hexagram 10: Treading
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 6).
Line 1
初六 有孚不終。乃亂乃萃。若號一握為笑。勿恤。往无咎。
Six at the beginning means: If you are sincere, but not to the end, There will sometimes be confusion, sometimes gathering together. If you call out, Then after one grasp of the hand you can laugh again. Regret not. Going is without blame.
Line 2
六二 引吉无咎。孚乃利用禴。
Six in the second place means: Letting oneself be drawn Brings good fortune and remains blameless. If one is sincere, It furthers one to bring even a small offering.
Line 6
上六 齎咨涕洟。无咎。
Six at the top means: Lamenting and sighing, floods of tears. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
泥滓污辱，棄捐溝瀆。為眾所笑，終不顯祿。
Mired in filth and disgrace, cast aside into ditch and gutter. Mocked by the multitude, he never attains a prominent post.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake upon earth transforms into heaven above the lake, where one treads carefully but the ground is already fouled. Mud and filth bring humiliation; the discarded one is cast into ditches and gutters. Laughed at by the crowd, one never attains honor or office. The verse is unrelenting in its bleakness: a person dragged through mire, abandoned in drainage channels, publicly mocked. No specific historical allusion is named; instead the imagery is archetypal social disgrace. From Gathering to Treading, the transformation carries dark irony: Treading speaks of walking upon the tiger's tail with proper conduct, but here the ground itself is contaminated. When an assembly turns hostile, the individual who falls from favor finds that even careful steps cannot avoid the filth others have made.
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