訟 → 夬
Hexagram 6: Conflict → Hexagram 43: Breakthrough
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 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 3
六三 食舊德。貞。厲終吉。或從王事。无成。
Six in the third place means: To nourish oneself on ancient virtue induces perseverance. Danger. In the end, good fortune comes. If by chance you are in the service of a king, Seek not works.
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
被髮傾走,寇逐我後。亡失刀兵,身全不傷。
Hair unbound, fleeing headlong; bandits chase behind. Losing my weapons; body whole, unharmed.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and water oppose, and someone runs for their life with hair streaming loose — bandits close behind. Yet the pursued one drops all weapons and escapes unscathed. The paradox is precise: by losing the instruments of conflict, the body is preserved. From Conflict to Breakthrough, the lake rises above heaven, accumulated pressure about to burst. Guai is decisive resolution — the final yang line breaking through the single yin. The verse twists this: the breakthrough here is not confrontation but radical disarmament. The fugitive survives not by fighting through but by shedding every means of resistance. Sometimes the most decisive act is to abandon the contest entirely and let survival itself be the victory.
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