節 → 離
Hexagram 60: Limitation → Hexagram 30: The Clinging Fire
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 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 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 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
商伯沉醉，庶兄奔走。淫女蕩夫，仁德並孤。
The merchant lord drowns in wine; his elder brother flees. A wanton woman, a dissolute man; benevolence and virtue both stand alone.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water over lake maintains order through restraint, but this verse chronicles the collapse of restraint at every level. The chief of Shang drowns in drink while his half-brother flees — an allusion to the last days of the Shang dynasty, when King Zhou debauched himself while the Viscount of Wei, his elder half-brother, took the sacrificial vessels and departed. Dissolute women and profligate men overrun the court; benevolence and virtue stand alone, abandoned. From Limitation to the Clinging, the transformation exposes what indulgence reveals. Doubled fire illuminates everything, casting harsh light on moral ruin. The Clinging demands something to cling to, but here every anchor has rotted. Limitation abandoned produces not freedom but the pitiless clarity of fire showing a world with nothing left to preserve.
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