艮 → 革
Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain → Hexagram 49: Revolution
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 5, 6).
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 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
王喬无病，狗頭不痛。亡屐失履，乏我送從。
Wang Qiao has no illness; the dog's head feels no pain. Losing one's clogs and shoes; lacking any who follow or attend me.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Twin mountains stand still as Wang Qiao has no illness, and the dog's head feels no pain — there is nothing wrong, yet everything needed is missing. Clogs are lost and shoes gone; no one accompanies the journey. Wang Qiao is the immortal prince who ascended to heaven, leaving behind only his shoes. In one tradition, his paired shoe-ducks flew to the court but one was captured, revealing itself as a shoe. The verse's logic is paradoxical: perfect health but no means of movement. From Keeping Still to Revolution, mountain yields to fire within the lake, the radical transformation that sweeps away the old. Yet without shoes, one cannot walk toward revolution. The spirit is ready but the ground-level equipment is absent — a transformation imagined but not enacted.
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