艮 → 賁
Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain → Hexagram 22: Grace
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 1).
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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
春多膏澤，夏潤優渥。稼穡成熟，畝獲百斛。師行失律，霸功不遂。
Spring abounds in rich rain; summer's moisture is generous. Crops ripen to harvest, each acre yielding a hundred bushels. The army marches without discipline; the hegemon's work goes unfinished.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Twin mountains stand still through a season of agricultural abundance — spring brings rich moisture, summer deepens the blessing, and the harvest yields a hundred bushels per mu. Then the verse pivots sharply: the army marches out of order and hegemonic ambitions collapse. The contrast is deliberately jarring — natural prosperity undone by military hubris. From Keeping Still to Grace, mountain gives way to fire beneath the mountain, where surface beauty adorns deeper structure. Grace insists that the gentleman governs wisely and refrains from rash judgment. The verse's two halves embody that standard and its violation: patient cultivation produces bounty, but ill-disciplined force squanders it. Adornment without substance is failure dressed as ambition.
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