萃 → 大壯
Hexagram 45: Gathering Together → Hexagram 34: Great Power
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 5).
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 3
六三 萃如嗟如。无攸利。往无咎。小吝。
Six in the third place means: Gathering together amid sighs. Nothing that would further. Going is without blame. Slight humiliation.
Line 5
九五 萃有位。无咎匪孚。元永貞。悔亡。
Nine in the fifth place means: If in gathering together one has position, This brings no blame. If there are some who are not yet sincerely in the work, Sublime and enduring perseverance is needed. Then remorse disappears.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
生无父母，出門不喜。買菽失粟，亡我大乘。
Born without father or mother; leaving the gate brings no joy. Buying beans, losing millet; gone is my great conveyance.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake upon earth transforms into thunder above heaven, the raw force of Great Power. Born without father or mother, leaving the gate brings no joy. Buying beans but losing millet, one forfeits the great carriage. The verse is a catalogue of deprivation and misjudgment: orphaned, joyless, trading down at every turn. The 'great carriage' was an official conveyance, its loss suggesting demotion or dismissal from office. Buying beans while losing millet inverts the exchange: one trades substance for something lesser. From Gathering to Great Power, the irony is cutting. Thunder above heaven should be overwhelming force, yet this person possesses nothing to empower. Great Power without foundation is merely noise, and the orphan who exits the gate has no community to marshal.
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