既濟 → 噬嗑
Hexagram 63: After Completion → Hexagram 21: Biting Through
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5, 6).
Line 3
九三 高宗伐鬼方。三年克之。小人勿用。
Nine in the third place means: The Illustrious Ancestor Disciplines the Devil's Country. After three years he conquers it. Inferior people must not be employed.
Line 4
六四 繻有衣袽。終日戒。
Six in the fourth place means: The finest clothes turn to rags. Be careful all day long.
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.
Line 6
上六 濡其首。厲。
Six at the top means: He gets his head in the water. Danger.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
田鼠野雞，意常欲逃。拘制籠檻，不得動搖。
An iron cage locks the eagle whose wings are already broken; a stone cell holds a tiger whose claws are worn flat. Day and night watching a thin line of light through the window — the word "freedom" weighs a thousand jin.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water sits above fire, but this verse is a modern rewrite. The original reads: 'Field mice and pheasants constantly wish to escape, but confined in cage and pen, they cannot move.' The imagery is stark: wild creatures trapped in enclosures, their instinct for freedom thwarted by physical restraint. The verse offers no resolution — only the grinding frustration of captivity. From After Completion to Biting Through, fire-and-water order transforms into fire above thunder — lightning's clarifying strike that breaks through obstruction. The completed state here has become a prison; Biting Through's mechanism demands that the obstacle be bitten apart. Freedom requires not patience but decisive force applied to the specific point of confinement.
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