訟 → 噬嗑
Hexagram 6: Conflict → Hexagram 21: Biting Through
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 5).
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 2
九二 不克訟。歸而逋其邑。人三百戶。无眚。
Nine in the second place means: One cannot engage in conflict; One returns home, gives way. The people of his town, Three hundred households, Remain free of guilt.
Line 5
九五 訟。元吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: To contend before him Brings supreme good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
武夫司空，多口爭訟。金火當戶，民不安處，年飢無有。
A warrior as minister of works; many mouths in litigation. Metal and fire at the door; the people find no peace. The year is famished, with nothing.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and water oppose, and the military official commanding public works breeds only more disputes. Many mouths quarrel; metal and fire blaze at the doorstep. The people cannot dwell in peace, and the year's harvest fails. Every element compounds the conflict: martial authority misapplied to civil administration, fire at the threshold, famine crowning disorder. From Conflict to Biting Through, thunder and lightning flash — the hexagram of legal enforcement. Yet where Biting Through should restore order through clear penalties, this verse shows the machinery of justice itself generating chaos. When the enforcer is the problem, enforcement only multiplies the harm.
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