艮 → 蹇
Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain → Hexagram 39: Obstruction
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 5, 6).
Line 5
六五 艮其輔。言有序。悔亡。
Six in the fifth place means: Keeping his jaws still. The words have order. Remorse disappears.
Line 6
上九 敦艮吉。
Nine at the top means: Noblehearted keeping still. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
華燈百杖，稍暗衰微。精光欲盡，奄如灰靡。
A hundred splendid lanterns, gradually dimming and declining. Their fine radiance nearly spent, suddenly extinguished like ash and dust.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Twin mountains stand still as a grand chandelier of a hundred lamps begins to dim and fade. Its radiance is spent; it gutters into ash. The image is theatrical — a great hall's lighting slowly dying, flame by flame, until darkness claims the space. From Keeping Still to Obstruction, doubled mountain yields to water upon the mountain. Obstruction places danger (water) directly atop difficulty (mountain), creating an impassable barrier. The verse's fading lights enact this: the mountain's stillness was once illuminated, but now each lamp that fails adds another layer of obstruction. The counsel of Obstruction is to 'turn inward and cultivate virtue,' but the verse suggests the light for such self-examination is itself running out.
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