節 → 謙
Hexagram 60: Limitation → Hexagram 15: Modesty
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 5).
Line 1
初九 不出戶庭。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: Not going out of the door and the courtyard Is without blame.
Line 2
九二 不出門庭。凶。
Nine in the second place means: Not going out of the gate and the courtyard Brings misfortune.
Line 3
六三 不節若。則嗟若。无咎。
Six in the third place means: He who knows no limitation Will have cause to lament. No blame.
Line 5
九五 甘節吉。往有尚。
Nine in the fifth place means: Sweet limitation brings good fortune. Going brings esteem.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
伯去我東，首髮如蓬。長夜不寐，憂繫心胸。
My lord has gone east; my hair is disheveled like wild grass. Through the long night I cannot sleep; sorrow binds my heart.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water over lake marks a boundary, and here that boundary is the vast distance of separation. The beloved has gone east, hair disheveled like tangled mugwort — a classical image of one in grief or exile who has abandoned all concern for appearance. Through long nights without sleep, worry binds the chest. The verse reads as a wife lamenting an absent husband, or a loyal subject mourning a departed lord. From Limitation to Modesty, the transformation deepens the anguish: the mountain hidden within the earth diminishes itself, leveling what was once prominent. The separated one does not merely wait but is actively reduced by waiting — ground down, humbled, worn to a whisper. Yet Modesty also implies that this diminishment holds its own quiet dignity.
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