小畜未濟

Hexagram 9: Small Taming → Hexagram 64: Before Completion

小畜
Small Taming
Wind / Heaven
䷿
未濟
Before Completion
Fire / Water
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 5).

Line 1

初九 復自道。何其咎。吉。

returning
one's own
dàopath
where
is one's
jiùan error?
promising

Nine at the beginning means: Return to the way. How could there be blame in this? Good fortune.

Line 3

九三 輿說輻。夫妻反目。

輿the carriage
shuōthrows off
its wheel's spokes
husband
and wife
fǎnare wild-
eyed

Nine in the third place means: The spokes burst out of the wagon wheels. Man and wife roll their eyes.

Line 4

六四 有孚。血去惕出。无咎。

yǒube
true
xuèthe bleeding
stops
and anxiety
chūdepart

Six in the fourth place means: If you are sincere, blood vanishes and fear gives way. No blame.

Line 5

九五 有孚攣如。富以其鄰。

yǒuhave
true
luánto confuse
like
enriched
by
one's
línneighbors

Nine in the fifth place means: If you are sincere and loyally attached, You are rich in your neighbor.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramWind FireThe Gentle → The Clinging
Lower TrigramHeaven WaterThe Creative → The Deep

Yilin Verse

三足孤烏,靈鳴督卸,思過罰惡,自賊其家。

The three-legged solitary crow, its spirit cry urges and drives. Reflecting on faults, punishing evil; it ruins its own house.

— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE

Commentary

Wind above heaven dissolves into fire hovering above water — Before Completion's perpetual almost. The three-legged sun-crow, lone and solitary, cries out in its numinous voice, urging reflection on past faults and punishment of evil. Yet it brings ruin upon its own household. From Small Taming to Before Completion, the verse ends the cycle with Wei Ji's irresolvable tension. Fire above water — each element in the other's place — represents a world not yet aligned. The sun-crow, emblem of celestial order, here turns its judicial energy inward: prosecuting evil but destroying its own home in the process. Self-correction pursued without wisdom becomes self-destruction. Before Completion warns that the final crossing demands the most care, and premature judgment capsizes the vessel midstream.

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