巽 → 師
Hexagram 57: The Gentle Wind → Hexagram 7: The Army
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 5, 6).
Line 3
九三 頻巽吝。
Nine in the third place means: Repeated penetration. Humiliation.
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
薄行搔尾，逐雲除水。污泥為陸，下田宜稷。
Light steps stir the shallows; clouds are chased, waters drained. Mud becomes dry land; the low fields yield their millet.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind upon wind transforms into earth over water: gentle penetration becomes military discipline. Treading lightly and sweeping the tail clean, one chases clouds and drains the water. Muddy swamps become dry land, and the lowland fields prove fit for planting millet. The imagery is of reclamation — marshes drained, terrain reshaped, chaos turned into agricultural order. This echoes the legendary flood-control work of Yu the Great, who channeled waters so the people could farm. From The Gentle to The Army, the transformation shows how patient, methodical effort creates the conditions for collective sustenance. Water within the earth contains the multitude: what begins as drainage ends as harvest, and the army's discipline mirrors the farmer's labor of turning swamp into field.
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