旅 → 謙
Hexagram 56: The Wanderer → Hexagram 15: Modesty
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 6).
Line 1
初六 旅瑣瑣。斯其所取災。
Six at the beginning means: If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things, He draws down misfortune upon himself.
Line 6
上九 鳥焚其巢。旅人先笑後號咷。喪牛于易。凶。
Nine at the top means: The bird's nest burns up. The wanderer laughs at first, Then must needs lament and weep. Through carelessness he loses his cow. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
群虎入邑，求索肉食。大人禦守，君不失國。
Beacon fires rise on all sides — the watchtower is in peril. The general draws his sword and stands unmoved. Below the walls, ten thousand riders surge like a tide — atop the wall, one banner has not yet fallen.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire on the mountain, and a pack of tigers descends upon a city seeking flesh. The original verse — 'Tigers swarm into the settlement seeking meat; the great man guards and defends, and the lord does not lose his state' — presents the wanderer's crisis at its most acute: hostile forces arrive, and survival depends on resolute defense. The 'great man' (大人) stands firm, transforming a desperate siege into a demonstration of principled endurance. From The Wanderer to Modesty, the mountain hidden within the earth, the defender does not boast of his strength but simply holds the line. Modesty's power lies precisely in this: reducing one's profile while maintaining inner solidity. The state is preserved not through spectacle but through quiet, immovable resolve.
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