鼎 → 巽
Hexagram 50: The Cauldron → Hexagram 57: The Gentle Wind
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 4, 5).
Line 4
九四 鼎折足。覆公餗。其形渥。凶。
Nine in the fourth place means: The legs of the ting are broken. The prince's meal is spilled And his person is soiled. Misfortune. A man has a difficult and responsible task to which he is not adequate. Moreover, he does not devote himself to it with all his strength but goes about with inferior people; therefore the execution of the work fails. In this way he also incurs personal opprobrium. Confucius says about this line: "Weak character coupled with honored place, meager knowledge with large plans, limited powers with heavy responsibility, will seldom escape disaster. "
Line 5
六五 鼎黃耳金鉉。利貞。
Six in the fifth place means: The ting has yellow handles, golden carrying rings. Perseverance furthers.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
避患東西，反入禍門。糟糠不足，憂動我心。
Fleeing disaster east and west, he stumbles instead through the gate of calamity. Chaff and husks are not enough; worry stirs my heart.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire over wind fills the cauldron, but doubled wind scatters in all directions without settling. Fleeing east and west to avoid disaster, one stumbles directly into the gate of misfortune. Even chaff and husks are insufficient — worry stirs the heart. The verse captures the cruelest irony of flight: the refugee's every evasive turn leads deeper into trouble, as though the exits are trapdoors. Food has degraded to its most basic form — not grain but its waste products — and even those fall short. From The Cauldron to The Gentle, doubled wind should mean penetrating influence, but here it becomes directionless dispersal. The cauldron's fire scatters into gusts that blow the cook's provisions away. Gentle penetration becomes panicked flight when wind has no anchor.
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