既濟 → 謙
Hexagram 63: After Completion → Hexagram 15: Modesty
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 5).
Line 1
初九 曳其輪。濡其尾。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: He breaks his wheels. He gets his tail in the water. No blame.
Line 5
九五 東鄰殺牛。不如西鄰之禴祭。實受其福。
Nine in the fifth place means: The neighbor in the east who slaughters an ox Does not attain as much real happiness As the neighbor in the west With his small offering.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
蠻戎夷狄，太陰所積。涸冰沍寒，君子不存。
The lands of the Man, Rong, Yi, and Di; where extreme yin accumulates. Frozen ice and bitter cold; the noble one cannot endure here.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water sits above fire, but the scene is desolate. Barbarian tribes of the four quarters press inward, and extreme yin accumulates — ice congeals, bitter cold descends. The gentleman cannot survive in such a place. The verse conjures a frontier stripped of civilized presence, where cold overwhelms warmth and the completed order freezes into lifelessness. From After Completion to Modesty, the balanced configuration gives way to a mountain hidden within the earth — Modesty's image of the high brought low. Yet here the lowering is not voluntary humility but forced retreat. The gentleman withdraws not from virtue but from a hostile environment where completion has calcified into frozen stagnation, and survival requires yielding ground.
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