中孚

Hexagram 61: Inner Truth → Hexagram 42: Increase

中孚
Inner Truth
Wind / Lake
Increase
Wind / Thunder
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 2).

Line 2

九二 鳴鶴在陰。其子和之。我有好爵。吾與爾靡之。

míngcall
crane
zàiremaining in
yīnshadows
her
young ones
respond
zhīher
I
yǒuhave
hǎofine
juédecanter
I
along with
ěryour
will drain
zhīit

Nine in the second place means: A crane calling in the shade. Its young answers it. I have a good goblet. I will share it with you.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramWind Wind
Lower TrigramLake ThunderThe Joyous → The Arousing

Yilin Verse

久鰥无偶,思配織女。求其非望,自令寡處。

Long a widower without a mate; dreaming of the Weaving Maid. Seeking what cannot be hoped for; consigning myself to solitude.

— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE

Commentary

Wind stirs above the lake, but the long-widowed man has no mate. He yearns to be paired with the Weaving Maid — a hope beyond all expectation — and condemns himself to solitary life. The Weaving Maid (織女) is the star Vega, separated from the Cowherd (牽牛) by the Milky Way and permitted to meet only once a year on the seventh of the seventh month. To desire her as a mortal spouse is to reach for the literally celestial. From Inner Truth to Increase, sincerity meets wind and thunder working together in mutual benefit. Yet the verse inverts Increase's promise: aspiring beyond one's reach does not enhance but impoverishes, and the man's romantic idealism becomes the very mechanism of his loneliness.

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