中孚 → 井
Hexagram 61: Inner Truth → Hexagram 48: The Well
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 6).
Line 1
初九 虞吉。有他不燕。
Nine at the beginning means: Being prepared brings good fortune. If there are secret designs, it is disquieting.
Line 3
六三 得敵。或鼓或罷。或泣或歌。
Six in the third place means: He finds a comrade. Now he beats the drum, now he stops. Now he sobs, now he sings.
Line 6
上九 翰音登于天。貞凶。
Nine at the top means: Cockcrow penetrating to heaven. Perseverance brings misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
尹氏伯奇,父子分離。无罪被辜,長舌為災。
Yin's family's Bo Qi; father and son separated. Innocent yet condemned; the long tongue brings disaster.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind stirs above the lake, and the story of Yin Jifu's son Boqi unfolds. Father and son are torn apart — an innocent boy convicted without crime, destroyed by a stepmother's venomous tongue. The tale is one of the oldest archetypes in Chinese tradition: Yin Jifu, a great minister of King Xuan of Zhou, remarried after his first wife's death. The stepmother framed Boqi by placing a bee on her collar; when the filial boy reached to remove it, his father saw an apparent assault and banished him. Boqi composed the lament 'Treading on Frost' in exile. From Inner Truth to the Well, sincerity meets water drawn up through wood — the deep source that nourishes all. Yet the well's water here is poisoned by slander: the long tongue corrupts the very channel through which truth should rise.
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