節 → 頤
Hexagram 60: Limitation → Hexagram 27: Nourishment
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 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 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
文明之世，銷鋒鑄耜。以道順民，百王不易。
In an age of culture and enlightenment, spear tips are melted into plowshares. Governing the people through the Way; a hundred kings would not alter this.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water over lake tempers and regulates, and this verse extends that tempering into a vision of civilized peace. In an age of cultural refinement, weapons are melted down and recast as plowshares — the classical image of swords into agricultural tools. The people are guided through the Way, and this principle remains unchanged through a hundred kings. The verse invokes the Confucian ideal of governance through moral transformation rather than coercion. From Limitation to Nourishment, the transformation deepens this vision. Mountain above thunder — the jaws that take in food, the careful regulation of what nourishes. Limitation's regulation of excess becomes Nourishment's discipline of intake: cautious words, measured sustenance. The realm that melts its weapons feeds its people, converting instruments of death into instruments of life.
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