訟 → 臨
Hexagram 6: Conflict → Hexagram 19: Approach
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 5, 6).
Line 1
初六 不永所事。小有言。終吉。
Six at the beginning means: If one does not perpetuate the affair, There is a little gossip. In the end, good fortune comes.
Line 4
九四 不克訟。復即命。渝安貞。吉。
Nine in the fourth place means: One cannot engage in conflict. One turns back and submits to fate, Changes one's attitude, And finds peace in perseverance. Good fortune.
Line 5
九五 訟。元吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: To contend before him Brings supreme good fortune.
Line 6
上九 或錫之鞶帶。終朝三褫之。
Nine at the top means: Even if by chance a leather belt is bestowed on one, By the end of a morning It will have been snatched away three times.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
開牢闢門，巡狩釋冤。夏臺羑里，湯文悅喜。
Open the prison, release the gates; go on royal progress and pardon the wronged. Xia Terrace and Youli -- Tang and Wen rejoice.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and water oppose, but the prison gates swing open. The ruler tours the realm and releases the wrongly accused. Xiatai and Youli — the two most famous prisons of antiquity — held King Tang and King Wen before their epochal rises. Now both sages rejoice: liberation has come at last. From Conflict to Approach, the lake opens beneath the earth, and authority draws near with benevolence. Lin's image is the ruler who approaches the people with inexhaustible care. The verse enacts this directly: injustice is reviewed, prisons are opened, and the righteous walk free. When power approaches with compassion rather than force, even the deepest conflicts — those that imprison the virtuous — dissolve.
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