節 → 艮
Hexagram 60: Limitation → Hexagram 52: Keeping Still Mountain
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6).
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.
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
噂噂囁囁，夜行晝伏。謀議我資，來竊吾室。
Murmuring and whispering; traveling by night, hiding by day. Plotting to seize my wealth; coming to rob my home.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water over lake guards its boundaries, yet this verse shows those boundaries breached by stealth. Whispered conspiracies and secret conferences — moving by night, hiding by day. They plot to seize one's wealth and come to plunder the household. The verse is a portrait of betrayal from within: enemies who operate not through frontal assault but through nocturnal infiltration and insider knowledge. From Limitation to Keeping Still, the transformation is deeply ironic. The doubled mountain stands firm, thinking not beyond its position — yet the thieves exploit this very stillness. While the mountain meditates, rats gnaw through the walls. Keeping Still's virtue of not straying from one's place becomes a vulnerability when the threats come from those who are already inside the perimeter that Limitation drew.
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