明夷 → 坤
Hexagram 36: Darkening of the Light → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 3).
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 3
九三 明夷于南狩。得其大首。不可疾貞。
Nine in the third place means: Darkening of the light during the hunt in the south. Their great leader is captured. One must not expect perseverance too soon.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
太公避紂，七十隱處，卒逢聖文，為王室輔。
Taigong fled from Zhou Xin; for seventy years he dwelt in hiding. At last he met the sage King Wen, and became pillar of the royal house.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire sinks beneath the earth as the sage waits in the receptive darkness. Taigong — Jiang Ziya, the future architect of Zhou — spent seventy years in obscurity, avoiding the tyranny of King Zhou of Shang. He fished at the Wei River, sold goods in markets, and served in menial positions, yet harbored a statesman's vision throughout. Only when King Wen recognized him did his decades of hidden preparation find their purpose. The verse's resolution is emphatic: 'At last he met the sage Wen and became pillar of the royal house.' From Darkening of the Light to the Receptive, the transformation reveals that the deepest yielding — earth upon earth — is not passivity but the patient ground from which a dynasty's foundations are laid.
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