艮 → 萃
Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain → Hexagram 45: Gathering Together
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5, 6).
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.
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
葵丘之盟，晉獻會行。見太宰辭，復為還輿。
At the covenant of Kuiqiu, Duke Xian of Jin attended the assembly. Meeting the Grand Steward's refusal, he turned his chariot and departed.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Twin mountains stand still as the covenant at Kuiqiu unfolds. Duke Xian of Jin dispatches an envoy to attend, but upon meeting the Grand Steward is turned away and the carriage returns home. The Kuiqiu covenant of 651 BC was Duke Huan of Qi's defining moment of hegemony, where the Zhou Son of Heaven himself acknowledged Qi's leadership. Duke Xian of Jin, then gravely ill, sent a representative but the delegation was rebuffed — Jin's internal turmoil disqualified it from the alliance. From Keeping Still to Gathering, mountain yields to the lake above the earth, where people congregate. The verse captures exclusion from that gathering: one arrives at the assembly only to be denied entry. Stillness becomes not dignity but isolation from the collective.
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