小過 → 晉
Hexagram 62: Small Exceeding → Hexagram 35: Progress
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 4).
Line 1
初六 飛鳥以凶。
Six at the beginning means: The bird meets with misfortune through flying.
Line 4
九四 无咎。弗過遇之。往厲必戒。勿用永貞。
Nine in the fourth place means: No blame. He meets him without passing by. Going brings danger. One must be on guard. Do not act. Be constantly persevering.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
九疑鬱林，沮濕不中。鸞鳳所惡，君子攸去。
The Jiuyi and Yulin ranges, damp and unsuitable; what the phoenix despises; where the noble man departs from.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder rumbles above the mountain, but in the far south, the Nine Doubts Mountains and the Yulin wilderness are damp and marshy — unfit for habitation. Phoenixes despise such terrain, and the gentleman departs. The Nine Doubts (九疑) are the legendary burial place of Emperor Shun, deep in the subtropical south of modern Hunan — a region associated in Han imagination with miasma, exile, and spiritual danger. Even the noblest birds refuse to settle there. From Small Exceeding to Progress, the mountain's thunder yields to fire rising above the earth — the image of the sun ascending at dawn. The gentleman's departure from the swamp is itself the first act of progress: recognition that advancing means choosing ground worthy of one's gifts, not persisting in hostile terrain.
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