巽 → 解
Hexagram 57: The Gentle Wind → Hexagram 40: Deliverance
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5, 6).
Line 3
九三 頻巽吝。
Nine in the third place means: Repeated penetration. Humiliation.
Line 4
六四 悔亡。田獲三品。
Six in the fourth place means: Remorse vanishes. During the hunt Three kinds of game are caught.
Line 5
九五 貞吉悔亡。无不利。无初有終。先庚三日。後庚三日。吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: Perseverance brings good fortune. Remorse vanishes. Nothing that does not further. No beginning, but an end. Before the change, three days. After the change, three days. Good fortune.
Line 6
上九 巽在牀下。喪其資斧。貞凶。
Nine at the top means: Penetration under the bed. He loses his property and his ax. Perseverance brings misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
褰衣涉河，水深漬罷。賴幸舟子，濟脫无他。
Whirlpool rising to the waist — crying for help urgently. A bamboo pole extends, just an arm's length away. Pulled onto the bank, clothes soaked through — looking back at the rapids, the heart is still cold.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind upon wind transforms into thunder over water: the Gentle becomes Deliverance. The original verse reads: 'Lifting one's robe to wade the river, the water is deep and one collapses from exhaustion. Fortunately a boatman appears, and one crosses safely without harm.' At the moment of drowning, rescue arrives. The verse moves from mortal peril to salvation in a single breath — the traveler has underestimated the current, the water overwhelms him, but a ferryman's timely intervention saves his life. From The Gentle to Deliverance, thunder and rain together dissolve the crisis. The boatman is the embodiment of Deliverance's mechanism: release comes not from the self but through the grace of another who arrives precisely when the danger peaks.
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