訟 → 萃
Hexagram 6: Conflict → Hexagram 45: Gathering Together
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 2, 6).
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 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
褰衣涉河,水深漬罷。賴幸舟子,濟脫無他。
Lifting robes to cross the river, the water deep, soaking and exhausting. Fortunately the boatman comes; rescued and delivered, no harm done.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven and water oppose, and a traveler lifts his robes to ford a river — but the water is deep, and exhaustion sets in. Fortunately a boatman appears, ferrying the traveler safely across without further harm. The verse is a parable of timely assistance: conflict plunges one into danger, but the right helper at the right moment transforms peril into safe passage. From Conflict to Gathering, the lake rises above the earth, and people converge. Cui's image is communal assembly under prepared leadership — the ruler who readies weapons and guards against the unexpected. The boatman is the human face of Gathering: collective capacity rescuing individual helplessness.
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