節 → 升
Hexagram 60: Limitation → Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 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 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
周師伐紂,勝殷牧野。甲子平旦,天下大喜。
Zhou's army attacked Zhou of Shang, victorious at the Wilds of Mu. At dawn on the jiazi day, all under heaven rejoiced.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water over lake waits for the moment to act, and this verse names the most famous such moment in Chinese history. The Zhou army marches against King Zhou of Shang and triumphs at the Battle of Muye. On the morning of the jiazi day, at the break of dawn, the world erupts in joy. The battle traditionally marks the founding of the Zhou dynasty, the paradigmatic righteous revolution. From Limitation to Pushing Upward, the transformation captures the organic inevitability of this rise. Trees grow within the earth, ascending with quiet persistence. The Zhou's long preparation under Kings Wen and Wu — decades of measured accumulation — culminated in a single day's decisive action. Limitation's patient discipline became the irresistible upward thrust of a new order. Small steps, steadily accumulated, produced the greatest transformation in antiquity.
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