震 → 艮
Hexagram 51: The Arousing Thunder → Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 6).
Line 1
初九 震來虩虩。後笑言啞啞。吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Shock comes–oh, oh! Then follow laughing words–ha, ha! Good fortune.
Line 3
六三 震蘇蘇。震行无眚。
Six in the third place means: Shock comes and makes one distraught. If shock spurs to action One remains free of misfortune.
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
玄黃虺隤，行者勞罷。役夫憔悴，踰時不歸。
Straw sandals worn through, toes exposed; the carrying pole bends like a bowstring. Walking a hundred li a day without seeing a town — the moon rises and sets, another year passes.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder doubled meets doubled mountain: shock stilled into absolute stillness. The original verse reads: 'Dark and sallow, weary and exhausted, the traveler is worn out and spent. The laborer is haggard, long overdue and not yet returned.' This is a verse of pure exhaustion — the body drained of color, the worker pushed beyond all endurance, unable to come home. The phrase 'dark and sallow' (玄黃虺隤) echoes the Shijing ode 'He Cao Bu Huang' about soldiers driven like beasts. From The Arousing to Keeping Still, the transformation is the collapse of motion into enforced rest. Thunder, having exhausted itself completely, has no choice but to stop. The mountain does not move because it cannot — stillness here is not wisdom but depletion.
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