升 → 坤
Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward → Hexagram 2: The Receptive
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 2, 3).
Line 2
九二 孚乃利用禴。无咎。
Nine in the second place means: If one is sincere, It furthers one to bring even a small offering. No blame.
Line 3
九三 升虛邑。
Nine in the third place means: One pushes upward into an empty city.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
百里南行，雖微得明。去虞適秦，為穆國卿。
A hundred li journeying south; though humble, one gains clarity. Leaving Yu and going to Qin, he became minister to Duke Mu.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wood grows within the earth, and a man walks a hundred li southward. Though humble and obscure, he finds the light at last. Baili Xi left the fallen state of Yu, traveled through hardship to Qin, and became chief minister to Duke Mu. Bought from slavery for five ram skins, he rose from feeding cattle to governing a great power — one of the most celebrated transformations in Chinese political history. The verse traces his journey from obscurity to eminence with spare precision. From Pushing Upward to the Receptive, the ascent from earth meets earth's own boundless capacity to receive and sustain. Baili Xi's genius required Qin's receptive soil: the vast, yielding earth that nurtures what rises through it.
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