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Hexagram 3
屯Zhūn
New life or order pressing into form before a clear way exists.
Great success. Constancy is beneficial. Do not set out on an undertaking. Establishing a lord is beneficial.
元、亨、利、貞。勿用有攸往，利建侯。
Clouds and thunder: Difficulty at the Beginning. The exemplary person draws the tangled strands of affairs into a coherent weave.
雲雷屯，君子以經綸。
Bottom to top
Line 1
磐桓，利居貞，利建侯。
Lingering and turning back. Remaining constant is beneficial; establishing a lord is beneficial.
Hesitation occupies Line 1, which is firm, before the new order has a stable footing. If this line yields, the figure becomes Hexagram 8, leaving the fifth as its only firm place.
Read Line 1 in contextLine 2
屯如邅如，乘馬班如。匪寇婚媾，女子貞不字，十年乃字。
Blocked and circling, the horse team turns back. The arrival is not a raider but a marriage seeker. The woman remains constant and does not consent to marriage; after ten years, she consents.
The passage distinguishes an approaching marriage seeker from a raider while leaving room for refusal and delay. Its ten years belong to the narrated scene, not a timetable for the reader. Changing Line 2, the lower center, produces Hexagram 60.
Read Line 2 in contextLine 3
即鹿无虞，惟入于林中。君子幾，不如舍，往吝。
Following a deer without a forester, one only enters the forest. The exemplary person sees the first signs and judges it better to let go; going on brings difficulty.
The deer supplies a goal, but there is no forester to make pursuit intelligible. The useful recognition is that desire does not supply missing guidance; abandoning the chase remains an available action. Changing Line 3 produces Hexagram 63.
Read Line 3 in contextLine 4
乘馬班如，求婚媾，往吉，无不利。
The horse team turns back, and a marriage bond is sought. Going forward is favorable; nothing is unfavorable.
Hesitation here is followed by seeking a bond: the same stalled movement seen elsewhere in the hexagram can take another course when help is sought. The line links advance with an approach to others. Changing Line 4 produces Hexagram 17.
Read Line 4 in contextLine 5
屯其膏，小貞吉，大貞凶。
Nourishing resources are held back from circulation. Constancy in small matters is favorable; in great matters, misfortune even with constancy.
A firm, central position does not ensure that resources reach those who need them. The text distinguishes a small undertaking from a large one, making scale part of the problem rather than treating persistence as sufficient. Changing Line 5 produces Hexagram 24.
Read Line 5 in contextLine 6
乘馬班如，泣血漣如。
The horse team turns back. Tears of blood flow in an unbroken stream.
The stalled horse team and streaming tears stand at the upper limit of the hexagram; a firm top line changes the figure to Hexagram 42.
Read Line 6 in contextOne line away
One classical protocol
A cast determines which part of a hexagram governs the reading. When one line moves, that line is read as the focus; other moving-line counts use different focus rules.
Read the changing-line protocol
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