師 → 姤
Hexagram 7: The Army → Hexagram 44: Coming to Meet
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5, 6).
Line 3
六三 師或輿尸。凶。
Six in the third place means: Perchance the army carries corpses in the wagon. Misfortune.
Line 4
六四 師左次。无咎。
Six in the fourth place means: The army retreats. No blame.
Line 5
六五 田有禽。利執言。无咎。長子帥師。弟子輿尸。貞凶。
Six in the fifth place means: There is game in the field. It furthers one to catch it. Without blame. Let the eldest lead the army. The younger transports corpses; Then perseverance brings misfortune.
Line 6
上六 大君有命。開國承家。小人勿用。
Six at the top means: The great prince issues commands, Founds states, vests families with fiefs. Inferior people should not be employed.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
多載重負，捐棄于野。予母誰子，但自勞苦。
Armor head to toe, sweat soaking through the clothes. The battle ends without glory — returning to the fields to plant mulberry.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water hidden within the earth bears heavy burdens, and the original verse speaks of loads piled high then abandoned in the wilderness. 'Who is the mother's child?' — but one can only toil on in solitude. The imagery evokes exhausted conscripts dumping supplies they can no longer carry, severed from home and identity, reduced to anonymous suffering. From The Army to Coming to Meet, heaven's wind sweeps beneath in unexpected encounter. Yet the verse offers no happy meeting — only the question of who will claim these forsaken laborers. The wind that should carry sovereign proclamations to the four directions passes over those too broken to hear them.
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