艮 → 噬嗑
Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain → Hexagram 21: Biting Through
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4).
Line 1
初六 艮其趾。无咎。利永貞。
Six at the beginning means: Keeping his toes still. No blame. Continued perseverance furthers.
Line 3
九三 艮其限。列其夤。厲熏心。
Nine in the third place means: Keeping his hips still. Making his sacrum stiff. Dangerous. The heart suffocates.
Line 4
六四 艮其身。无咎。
Six in the fourth place means: Keeping his trunk still. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
溫仁君子，忠孝所在。入閨為儀，禍災不處。
A warm and benevolent gentleman, where loyalty and filial piety reside. Entering the inner chambers as a model; calamity and disaster do not dwell there.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Twin mountains stand still, sheltering a man of warmth and benevolence. This gentleman dwells in loyalty and filial devotion. When he enters the inner chambers, he brings propriety and good order; calamity and disaster dare not reside where he stands. The verse is a character portrait: the Confucian ideal of the cultivated person whose moral gravity clears a space around him. From Keeping Still to Biting Through, mountain yields to thunder and lightning — the law that bites through obstruction to restore justice. The gentleman's stillness is not inertia but moral weight so concentrated that disorder retreats on contact. His entry into the household brings the same decisive clarity that lightning brings to a clouded sky.
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