升 → 大畜
Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward → Hexagram 26: Great Taming
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 6).
Line 1
初六 允升大吉。
Six at the beginning means: Pushing upward that meets with confidence Brings great good fortune.
Line 6
上六 冥升。利于不息之貞。
Six at the top means: Pushing upward in darkness. It furthers one To be unremittingly persevering.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
牽牛繫尾,詘折幾死。彫世无仁,不知所在。
Pulling the ox by the tail, it is bent and twisted nearly to death. In a declining age without mercy, one knows not where it leads.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wood grows within the earth, but an ox is dragged by its tail, twisted and bent nearly to the point of death. The world is decadent and devoid of benevolence; no one knows where virtue still resides. The image is brutal: the animal's natural strength turned against it by those who seize its most vulnerable part and wrench it backward. Mountain over heaven, the image of Great Taming, should store creative power within the mountain for future use. From Pushing Upward to Great Taming, the ascending life force encounters forcible restraint. But this is taming perverted into cruelty: instead of nurturing strength until the right moment, the decadent age abuses and distorts what should be carefully cultivated.
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