艮 → 益
Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain → Hexagram 42: Increase
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 5).
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 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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
秦兵爭強，失其貞良，敗於郩鄉。
Qin's soldiers vie for supremacy, but lose their upright and loyal. Defeated at the village of Gui.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Twin mountains stand still, but Qin's armies contend for dominance and lose their most upright men, suffering defeat in the countryside. The verse names Qin's militarism as the source of its undoing: in pursuing strength through aggression, it sacrificed the loyal and virtuous who were its true foundation. The place name is obscure but suggests a specific engagement in which Qin's forces overextended and were routed. From Keeping Still to Increase, mountain yields to wind above thunder — the image of self-correction through observing good and reforming error. The verse implies that Qin refused this lesson: rather than increasing virtue through self-examination, it increased only its appetite for conquest, and the defeat was the inevitable rebuke.
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