訟 → 損

Commentary

Heaven and water oppose, and conflict escalates beyond words to weapons. Lawsuits rage without end; disputants draw swords against each other. One party, weak of mouth and outmatched in argument, flees northward with hair disheveled — the image of total rout and social humiliation. From Conflict to Decrease, the mountain rises above the lake, drawing energy upward while the base is diminished. Sun's counsel is to restrain anger and suppress desire. The verse shows what happens when this restraint is absent: litigation becomes combat, rhetoric becomes violence, and the loser flees stripped of dignity. Decrease insists that the only way to halt escalation is voluntary self-reduction — curbing one's own aggression before the swords come out.