小畜 → 坤
Hexagram 9: Small Taming → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6).
Line 1
初九 復自道。何其咎。吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Return to the way. How could there be blame in this? Good fortune.
Line 2
九二 牽復。吉。
Nine in the second place means: He allows himself to be drawn into returning. Good fortune.
Line 3
九三 輿說輻。夫妻反目。
Nine in the third place means: The spokes burst out of the wagon wheels. Man and wife roll their eyes.
Line 5
九五 有孚攣如。富以其鄰。
Nine in the fifth place means: If you are sincere and loyally attached, You are rich in your neighbor.
Line 6
上九 既雨既處。尚德載。婦貞厲。月幾望。君子征凶。
Nine at the top means: The rain comes, there is rest. This is due to the lasting effect of character. Perseverance brings the woman into danger. The moon is nearly full. If the superior man persists, Misfortune comes.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
子鉏執麟，《春秋》作元；陰將以終，尼父悲心。
Zichu captures the qilin; the Spring and Autumn Annals begins. Yin is about to end; Master Ni grieves in his heart.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind above heaven yields to pure earth. Zichushang, the charioteer of the Shusun clan, captures a qilin during a hunt in the Great Marsh — the incident of 481 BC that traditionally marks where Confucius ceased writing the Spring and Autumn Annals. The sage, here called by his surname 'Father Ni,' grieves: the benevolent beast that appears only under sage rulers now emerges in a degenerate age. Yin reaches its terminal phase; the moral order exhausts itself. From Small Taming to the Receptive, heaven's restrained energy collapses into earth's passive finality. The qilin's capture is not renewal but closure — the last flicker of cosmic harmony absorbed into undifferentiated earth.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store