訟 → 復
Hexagram 6: Conflict → Hexagram 24: Return
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 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 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 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
褰兔缺唇，行難齒寒。口痛不言，為身生患。
The rabbit with cleft lip; walking is difficult, teeth are cold. The mouth aches, unable to speak; bringing affliction upon himself.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and water oppose. A hare with a cleft lip struggles to move; its teeth are exposed and cold. The mouth aches, yet it dares not speak, and silence itself breeds further affliction. The harelip is both physical defect and metaphor: when the instrument of articulation is malformed, communication fails, and unexpressed grievances fester into bodily harm. The idiom 'lips gone, teeth cold' (唇亡齒寒) haunts the verse — without protective covering, vulnerability deepens. From Conflict to Return, thunder stirs beneath the earth at the winter solstice, the single yang returning. Return demands turning inward for renewal, yet the hare cannot speak its way out. The return here must be silent, internal, a mending from within.
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