震 → 損
Hexagram 51: The Arousing Thunder → Hexagram 41: Decrease
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 6).
Line 2
六二 震來厲。億喪貝。躋于九陵。勿逐。七日得。
Six in the second place means: Shock comes bringing danger. A hundred thousand times You lose your treasures And must climb the nine hills. Do not go in pursuit of them. After seven days you will get them back again.
Line 4
九四 震遂泥。
Nine in the fourth place means: Shock is mired.
Line 6
上六 震索索。視矍矍。征凶。震不于其躬。于其鄰。无咎。婚媾有言。
Six at the top means: Shock brings ruin and terrified gazing around. Going ahead brings misfortune. If it has not yet touched one's own body But has reached one's neighbor first, There is no blame. One's comrades have something to talk about.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
翕翕䡘䡘，稍頹崩顛。減其令名，身不得全。
Tottering, shuddering; gradually crumbling and collapsing. His good name diminished; his person cannot be kept whole.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder doubled meets mountain over lake: shock diminished into Decrease. Crumbling and collapsing, gradually toppling into ruin. A good reputation is destroyed, and the person cannot survive intact. The onomatopoeia 翕翕䡘䡘 evokes the creaking and groaning of a structure giving way — not a sudden crash but a slow, grinding disintegration. First the name is damaged, then the body follows. From The Arousing to Decrease, mountain above lake, the lower is diminished to augment the upper. But here the transfer is purely destructive: reputation is stripped away, physical integrity follows. The verse captures Decrease at its most brutal — not the willing sacrifice of the lower for the higher, but the involuntary erosion of everything one possesses, from honor to life itself.
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