剝 → 明夷
Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 36: Darkening of the Light
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 6).
Line 1
初六 剝牀以足。蔑貞凶。
Six at the beginning means: The leg of the bed is split. Those who persevere are destroyed. Misfortune.
Line 3
六三 剝之无咎。
Six in the third place means: He splits with them. No blame.
Line 6
上九 碩果不食。君子得輿。小人剝廬。
Nine at the top means: There is a large fruit still uneaten. The superior man receives a carriage. The house of the inferior man is split apart.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
登丘上山，對酒道觀。終年卒歲，優福無患。
Ascending the hill, climbing the mountain; drinking wine at the Daoist temple. Through the year to its very end, blessed and free from misfortune.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain upon earth decays into earth above fire — Darkening of the Light, brightness driven underground. Yet the verse describes an idyll: climbing hills and mountains, drinking wine at a Daoist observatory, living out the year in leisure and blessed freedom from harm. This seeming contradiction is the hexagram's deepest teaching. When light is driven below the earth, the wise do not fight the darkness but retreat into the pleasure of private life. The hilltop wine-drinking and the observatory suggest a scholar who has abandoned the corrupt court for hermit contentment. From Splitting Apart to Darkening of the Light, the mountain's collapse buries the light rather than exposing it. The sage responds by using darkness itself as shelter — 'wielding dimness to preserve brightness,' as the hexagram text instructs.
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