萃 → 鼎
Hexagram 45: Gathering Together → Hexagram 50: The Cauldron
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 5, 6).
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.
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
迷行數邪，不知東西。陰強暴逆，道理不通。
Lost in wandering, straying onto crooked paths; not knowing east from west. Dark forces rage in cruel defiance; the way of reason does not prevail.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake upon earth gives way to fire above wind, the transformative Cauldron. Lost on crooked paths, one cannot tell east from west. Yin forces grow aggressive and perverse; the way of reason is blocked. The Cauldron hexagram speaks of sacred cooking, refining raw materials into offerings worthy of heaven. Yet here the raw material itself is corrupted: the traveler is lost, the moral compass broken, and dark forces dominate through violence. From Gathering to the Cauldron, the transformation exposes what happens when the wrong ingredients are gathered for the sacred vessel. Fire above wind should heat the cauldron to refine and purify, but if what enters the pot is already rotten, no amount of cooking can produce a worthy offering. Discernment before gathering is essential.
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