乾 → 坤
Hexagram 1: The Creative → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 6 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).
Line 1
初九 潛龍勿用。
Nine at the beginning means: Hidden dragon. Do not act.
Line 2
九二 見龍在田。利見大人。
Nine in the second place means: Dragon appearing in the field. It furthers one to see the great man.
Line 3
九三 君子終日乾乾。夕惕若厲。无咎。
Nine in the third place means: All day long the superior man is creatively active. At nightfall his mind is still beset with cares. Danger. No blame.
Line 4
九四 或躍在淵。无咎。
Nine in the fourth place means: Wavering flight over the depths. No blame.
Line 5
九五 飛龍在天。利見大人。
Nine in the fifth place means: Flying dragon in the heavens. It furthers one to see the great man.
Line 6
上九 亢龍有悔。
Nine at the top means: Arrogant dragon will have cause to repent.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
招殃來螫，害我邦國；病在手足，不得安息。
Inviting calamity, drawing stings; harming our domain. The affliction is in the limbs; one finds no rest.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven descends into earth, and with it calamity arrives like a venomous sting. The harm penetrates the state itself; the affliction strikes hands and feet — the instruments of action — leaving no rest. From the Creative to the Receptive, supreme yang collapses into supreme yin, the most radical transformation possible. The verse captures this as invasion from without and paralysis within: what stings the body politic lodges in its very limbs. The earth's vast tolerance, turned passive, becomes vulnerability rather than strength. Where Creative would drive forward, the Receptive here absorbs disaster without resistance, and the state that invited calamity finds itself unable to shake it off.
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