未濟 → 訟
Hexagram 64: Before Completion → Hexagram 6: Conflict
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 5).
Line 5
六五 貞吉无悔。君子之光。有孚吉。
Six in the fifth place means: Perseverance brings good fortune. No remorse. The light of the superior man is true. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
比目四翼，來安吾國。福喜上堂，與我同床。
Mandarin ducks play in water, swimming head to head. Wings side by side, they fly together, not knowing autumn. A red thread secretly connects them across a thousand li — bright moonlight through the window, two pillows in gentle peace.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire above water, the elements still unresolved. The original verse speaks of paired-eye fish and shared-wing birds arriving to bring peace to the nation — creatures that can only exist in partnership. Blessings ascend the hall, and good fortune shares the bed. The paired-eye fish (比目) and shared-wing birds (四翼) are classical symbols of inseparable love and mutual dependence, drawn from the Erya's catalog of wondrous creatures. From Before Completion to Conflict, the tender domesticity of the verse stands in sharp tension with the target hexagram. Heaven and water move in opposing directions in Conflict, yet the verse insists on union. Perhaps the message is precisely this: even where structural opposition is inevitable, the paired creatures find each other — love as the counterforce to cosmic divergence.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store