Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain → Hexagram 57: The Gentle Wind

Keeping Still Mountain
Mountain / Mountain
The Gentle Wind
Wind / Wind
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 2, 5).

Line 2

六二 艮其腓。不拯其隨。其心不快。

gènstillness
in one's own
féicalves
this does
zhěnghelping
in
suípursuits
this one's
xīnheart
is not
kuàihappy

Six in the second place means: Keeping his calves still. He cannot rescue him whom he follows. His heart is not glad.

Line 5

六五 艮其輔。言有序。悔亡。

gènstillness
in one's own
jawbones
yánspeech
yǒuhas
meaningful order
huǐregrets
wángpass

Six in the fifth place means: Keeping his jaws still. The words have order. Remorse disappears.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramMountain WindKeeping Still → The Gentle
Lower TrigramMountain WindKeeping Still → The Gentle

Yilin Verse

五穀不熟,民苦困急。亟之南國,嘉樂有得。

The five grains do not ripen; the people suffer hardship and want. Hasten to the southern land; there, joy and gain are found.

— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE

Commentary

Twin mountains stand still, but the five grains will not ripen and the people suffer in desperate straits. The remedy: hasten south to another land, where joy and bounty await. The verse prescribes migration as the answer to famine — when one's own ground fails, one must seek sustenance elsewhere. From Keeping Still to the Gentle, mountain yields to doubled wind, the image of repeated, penetrating commands. The Gentle operates through persistent, subtle influence rather than force. The verse's journey south enacts this: not a dramatic upheaval but a steady movement toward what nourishes. The mountain's stillness, which could not produce grain, yields to the wind's capacity to carry seeds — and people — to more fertile ground.

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