節 → 噬嗑
Hexagram 60: Limitation → Hexagram 21: Biting Through
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 5, 6).
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 4
六四 安節亨。
Six in the fourth place means: Contented limitation. Success.
Line 5
九五 甘節吉。往有尚。
Nine in the fifth place means: Sweet limitation brings good fortune. Going brings esteem.
Line 6
上六 苦節貞凶。悔亡。
Six at the top means: Galling limitation. Perseverance brings misfortune. Remorse disappears.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
東行西步，失次後舍。與彼作期，不覺至夜。乾侯野井，昭君失居。
Walking east then west, losing sequence and lodging. Making an appointment with another, not realizing night has fallen. The lord at Qianhou's wild well; Zhao's ruler has lost his home.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water over lake should impose order, but here everything has lost its sequence. Walking east then stepping west, missing lodgings, breaking appointments — time slips away unnoticed into nightfall. The verse then invokes a specific historical resonance: Duke Zhao of Lu, exiled at Qianhou, drinking from wild wells, a legitimate ruler who lost his seat. In 517 BC, Duke Zhao fled Lu after a failed attempt to curb the Three Huan families, and spent his remaining years wandering between Jin and the small town of Qianhou, where he died in exile. From Limitation to Biting Through, the transformation suggests that only decisive justice — lightning and thunder clamping down — can restore what aimless wandering cannot. The displaced ruler needed not more wandering but a sharp, corrective bite through the obstruction.
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