Hexagram 36 for love
Hexagram 36 Brightness Hidden in love and relationships
Ming Yi is the sun sunk beneath the earth: brightness within, darkness without, and the Judgment's counsel is 'it is favourable to be steady in difficulty'. For a relationship this describes a time when what is good in it cannot be shown — a bond kept under pressure from family, circumstances or one partner's darkness, where openness would be punished. The Great Image gives the posture: 'he uses dimness to be bright' (用晦而明), keeping the light alive by not displaying it.
The lines are a gallery of ways to live through such a time. Line one leaves early, hungry and misunderstood; line two is wounded but escapes by means it had ready; line three has the strength to confront the source of the darkness and is told not to hurry the aftermath; four sees the dark from inside and goes out by the gate; five stays, dims its light and keeps itself whole. The top line is the darkness itself, past its height. A changing line tells you which of these you are: the one who should go, the one who can act, or the one who must endure.
The hexagram in brief
The sun sunk under the earth: the light wounded. In dark times it is favourable to persevere — hide your brilliance, as the ancient sage did under a tyrant.
Keep your inner light while appearing modest; endure injustice without being corrupted or exposed.
The judgment
明夷：利艱貞。Ming Î indicates that (in the circumstances which it denotes) it will be advantageous to realise the difficulty (of the position), and maintain firm correctness.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 明夷 Brightness Hidden has its own page:
- 初九Nine at the beginningdrooping wings · leaving early · going hungry
- 六二Six in the second placewounded in the thigh · a strong horse · King Wen
- 九三Nine in the third placehunting in the south · the great chief · not too fast
- 六四Six in the fourth placethe left belly · understanding the dark · leaving by the gate
- 六五Six in the fifth placeJizi · feigned darkness · the light cannot be put out
- 上六Six at the topdarkness itself · first to heaven, then to earth · the fallen ruler
The same hexagram for
Questions
- Is hexagram 36, Brightness Hidden, a good sign for love?
- Ming Yi is the sun sunk beneath the earth: brightness within, darkness without, and the Judgment's counsel is 'it is favourable to be steady in difficulty'. For a relationship this describes a time when what is good in it cannot be shown — a bond kept under pressure from family, circumstances or one partner's darkness, where openness would be punished. The Great Image gives the posture: 'he uses dimness to be bright' (用晦而明), keeping the light alive by not displaying it.
- What does Hexagram 36, 明夷 Brightness Hidden, mean?
- The sun sunk under the earth: the light wounded. In dark times it is favourable to persevere — hide your brilliance, as the ancient sage did under a tyrant.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).