旅 → 大畜
Hexagram 56: The Wanderer → Hexagram 26: Great Taming
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 2).
Line 2
六二 旅即次。懷其資。得童僕貞。
Six in the second place means: The wanderer comes to an inn. He has his property with him. He wins the steadfastness of a young servant.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
巢成樹折,傷我彝器。伯踒叔跌,亡羊乃追。
The nest is built, the tree breaks; it shatters my ritual vessels. The elder stumbles, the younger falls; they chase the sheep already lost.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire on the mountain, and the nest is finished just as the tree snaps. Sacred vessels are damaged, the eldest stumbles and the second trips, and only then does anyone think to chase the lost sheep. Every disaster arrives after the moment of supposed completion — the nest is built upon a branch already breaking. The 'lost sheep pursued too late' echoes the proverb 'mending the pen after the sheep are gone.' From The Wanderer to Great Taming, heaven stored within the mountain accumulates wisdom from the past. Yet the verse presents the failure to learn in time: the knowledge that should have been stored — awareness of structural weakness — was neglected until catastrophe struck. Great Taming's power of retention is wasted on those who only remember after the loss.
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