明夷 → 蠱
Hexagram 36: Darkening of the Light → Hexagram 18: Work on the Decayed
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 6).
Line 1
初九 明夷于飛。垂其翼。君子于行。三日不食。有攸往。主人有言。
Nine at the beginning means: Darkening of the light during flight. He lowers his wings. The superior man does not eat for three days On his wanderings. But he has somewhere to go. The host has occasion to gossip about him.
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 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
文文墨墨，憂禍相雜。南北失志，東西不得。
Muddled writing, blotted ink; worry and misfortune mingle together. South and north lose their aim; east and west cannot be found.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire sinks beneath the earth while wind stirs under the mountain — Work on the Decayed, where corruption must be addressed before renewal. 'Ink and scribbles tangled together, worries and disasters interwoven.' The confusion is both intellectual and moral — nothing can be clearly read or understood. 'South and north lose direction; east and west yield nothing.' Complete disorientation, where every path leads to failure. This is the state of affairs when decay has penetrated so deeply that the buried light cannot find its way out. From Darkening of the Light to Work on the Decayed, the transformation demands that the rot be named before it can be repaired. Wind beneath the mountain suggests hidden corruption that must be exposed and systematically addressed.
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