兌 → 困

Commentary

Paired lakes drain into the lake without water — Oppression, the image of exhaustion. A rumbling fills the air as fire burns at the mountain's base. The flames do not moisten the neighborhood; alone, one receives no grace. Fire at the mountain root is a subterranean conflagration — heat without light, destruction without warmth. From The Joyous to Oppression, delight is consumed from within. The lake without water is a vessel emptied of its essence; the fire that should provide warmth instead parches everything around it. The verse's isolation — 'alone, receiving no grace' — captures the particular cruelty of Oppression: suffering that goes unwitnessed and unremedied.