明夷 → 大有
Hexagram 36: Darkening of the Light → Hexagram 14: Great Possession
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 6).
Line 2
六二 明夷。夷于左股。用拯馬壯吉。
Six in the second place means: Darkening of the light injures him in the left thigh. He gives aid with the strength of a horse. Good fortune.
Line 4
六四 入于左腹。獲明夷之心。于出門庭。
Six in the fourth place means: He penetrates the left side of the belly. One gets at the very heart of the darkening of the light, And leaves gate and courtyard.
Line 6
上六 不明晦。初登于天。後入于地。
Six at the top means: Not light but darkness. First he climbed up to heaven, Then plunged into the depths of the earth.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
雖窮復通，履危不凶，保其明功。
Though impoverished, one finds passage again; treading danger, yet no misfortune. One preserves one's bright merit.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire hidden beneath the earth blazes forth as fire in heaven — Great Possession, the fullest expression of light's return. 'Though impoverished, one breaks through again; though treading danger, no misfortune comes; one preserves the merit of brilliance.' This is the Darkening of the Light's own promise fulfilled: the buried fire was never extinguished but merely waiting for the conditions that would let it illuminate heaven. The verse's three-beat structure — poverty overcome, danger survived, brilliance preserved — reads almost as a manifesto for the hexagram's core teaching. From Darkening of the Light to Great Possession, suppressed fire ascends to its proper place above heaven, and what was once dimmed now radiates without obstruction.
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