升 → 既濟
Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward → Hexagram 63: After Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 5).
Line 1
初六 允升大吉。
Six at the beginning means: Pushing upward that meets with confidence Brings great good fortune.
Line 2
九二 孚乃利用禴。无咎。
Nine in the second place means: If one is sincere, It furthers one to bring even a small offering. No blame.
Line 5
六五 貞吉升階。
Six in the fifth place means: Perseverance brings good fortune. One pushes upward by steps.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
窮夫失居，惟守弊廬。初憂中懼，終日兢競，无悔无虞。
The destitute man, driven from his home, clings only to his broken hut. First comes worry, then dread within; all day long he trembles in vigilance, yet finds neither regret nor blame.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wood grows within the earth, but a poor man has lost his dwelling and clings to a crumbling, dilapidated hut as his only shelter. At first there is worry, then mounting fear, and all day long he treads with anxious, unrelenting vigilance — yet in the end there is no regret and no mishap befalls him. Water over fire, the image of After Completion, warns that even when all elements are perfectly in place, the wise mind anticipates trouble before it arrives. From Pushing Upward to After Completion, the ascending journey reaches its conclusion in watchful, careful maintenance. The poor man survives not through comfort but through unrelenting caution. His ascent was modest — merely holding on — but his constant vigilance brings him through intact and without cause for regret.
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