比 → 既濟
Hexagram 8: Holding Together → Hexagram 63: After Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 3).
Line 1
初六 有孚比之。无咎。有孚盈缶。終來有它吉。
Six at the beginning means: Hold to him in truth and loyalty; This is without blame. Truth, like a full earthen bowl: Thus in the end Good fortune comes from without.
Line 3
六三 比之匪人。
Six in the third place means: You hold together with the wrong people.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
精神消落，形骸醜惡；齬齚頓挫，枯槁腐蠹。
Spirit and vitality fade away; the body grows ugly and frail. Gnashing and stumbling; withered, decayed, and worm-eaten.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water upon earth sustains life, but here the body itself fails. Spirit and vitality drain away; the physical form grows ugly and decayed. Teeth grind and stumble; the frame withers into a desiccated husk eaten by worms. The verse is an unflinching portrait of senescence — the body as a structure that was once held together and now disintegrates. From Holding Together to After Completion, water sits above fire in apparent equilibrium, yet the hexagram warns: 'think of calamity and prepare against it.' Jiji's completed order is always on the verge of unraveling. The verse embodies that precipice: everything that once functioned now decays, a completed life tilting toward its dissolution.
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