坤
kūn

2. The Receptive

䷁
Above
坤 kūn
The Receptive, Earth
Below
坤 kūn
The Receptive, Earth

This hexa­gram is made up of bro­ken lines only. The bro­ken line rep­re­sents the dark, yield­ing, re­cep­tive pri­mal power of yin. The at­tribute of the hexa­gram is de­vo­tion; its image is the earth. It is the per­fect com­ple­ment of THE cre­ative—the com­ple­ment, not the op­po­site, for the Re­cep­tive does not com­bat the Cre­ative but com­pletes it. It rep­re­sents na­ture in con­trast to spir­it, earth in con­trast to heav­en, space as against time, the fe­male-ma­ter­nal as against the male-pa­ter­nal. How­ev­er, as ap­plied to human af­fairs, the prin­ci­ple of this com­ple­men­tary re­la­tion­ship is found not only in the re­la­tion be­tween man and woman, but also in that be­tween prince and min­is­ter and be­tween fa­ther and son. In­deed, even in the in­di­vid­ual this du­al­i­ty ap­pears in the co­ex­is­tence of the spir­i­tu­al world and the world of the sens­es.

But strict­ly speak­ing there is no real du­al­ism here, be­cause there is a clear­ly de­fined hi­er­ar­chic re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two prin­ci­ples. In it­self of course the Re­cep­tive is just as im­por­tant as the Cre­ative, but the at­tribute of de­vo­tion de­fines the place oc­cu­pied by this pri­mal power in re­la­tion to the Cre­ative. For the Re­cep­tive must be ac­ti­vat­ed and led by the Cre­ative; then it is pro­duc­tive of good. Only when it aban­dons this po­si­tion and tries to stand as an equal side by side with the Cre­ative, does it be­come evil. The re­sult then is op­po­si­tion to and strug­gle against the Cre­ative, which is pro­duc­tive of evil to both.

The Judgement

The receptive brings about sublime success,
Furthering through the perseverance of a mare.
If the superior man undertakes something and tries to lead,
He goes astray;
But if he follows, he finds guidance.
It is favorable to find friends in the west and south,
To forego friends in the east and north.
Quiet perseverance brings good fortune.

The four fun­da­men­tal as­pects of the Cre­ative—“sub­lime suc­cess, fur­ther­ing through per­se­ver­ance”—are also at­trib­uted to the Re­cep­tive. Here, how­ev­er, the per­se­ver­ance is more close­ly de­fined: it is that of a mare. The Re­cep­tive con­notes spa­tial re­al­i­ty in con­trast to the spir­i­tu­al po­ten­tial­i­ty of the Cre­ative. The po­ten­tial be­comes real and the spir­i­tu­al be­comes spa­tial through a specif­i­cal­ly qual­i­fy­ing de­f­i­n­i­tion. Thus the qual­i­fi­ca­tion, “of a mare,” is here added to the idea of per­se­ver­ance. The horse be­longs to earth just as the drag­on be­longs to heav­en. Its tire­less roam­ing over the plains is taken as a sym­bol of the vast ex­panse of the earth. This is the sym­bol cho­sen be­cause the mare com­bines the strength and swift­ness of the horse with the gen­tle­ness and de­vo­tion of the cow.

Only be­cause na­ture in its myr­i­ad forms cor­re­sponds with the myr­i­ad im­puls­es of the Cre­ative can it make these im­puls­es real. Na­ture’s rich­ness lies in its power to nour­ish all liv­ing things; its great­ness lies in its power to give them beau­ty and splen­dor. Thus it pros­pers all that lives. It is the Cre­ative that begets things, but they are brought to birth by the Re­cep­tive. Ap­plied to human af­fairs, there­fore, what the hexa­gram in­di­cates is ac­tion in con­for­mi­ty with the sit­u­a­tion. The per­son in ques­tion is not in an in­de­pen­dent po­si­tion, but is act­ing as an as­sis­tant. This means that he must achieve some­thing. It is not his task to try to lead—that would only make him lose the way—but to let him­self be led. If he knows how to meet fate with an at­ti­tude of ac­cep­tance, he is sure to find the right guid­ance. The su­pe­ri­or man lets him­self be guid­ed; he does not go ahead blind­ly, but learns from the sit­u­a­tion what is de­mand­ed of him and then fol­lows this in­ti­ma­tion from fate.

Since there is some­thing to be ac­com­plished, we need friends and helpers in the hour of toil and ef­fort, once the ideas to be re­al­ized are firm­ly set. The time of toil and ef­fort is in­di­cat­ed by the west and the south, for west and south sym­bol­ize the place where the Re­cep­tive works for the Cre­ative, as na­ture does in sum­mer and au­tumn. If in that sit­u­a­tion one does not mo­bi­lize all one’s pow­ers, the work to be ac­com­plished will not be done. Hence to find friends there means to find guid­ance. But in ad­di­tion to the time of toil and ef­fort, there is also a time of plan­ning, and for this we need soli­tude. The east sym­bol­izes the place where a man re­ceives or­ders from his mas­ter, and the north the place where he re­ports on what he has done. At that time he must be alone and ob­jec­tive. In this sa­cred hour he must do with­out com­pan­ions, so that the pu­ri­ty of the mo­ment may not be spoiled by fac­tion­al hates and fa­voritism.

The Image

The earth's condition is receptive devotion.
Thus the superior man who has breadth of character
Carries the outer world.

Just as there is only one heav­en, so too there is only one earth. In the hexa­gram of heav­en the dou­bling of the tri­gram im­plies du­ra­tion in time, but in the hexa­gram of earth the dou­bling con­notes the so­lid­i­ty and ex­ten­sion in space by virtue of which the earth is able to carry and pre­serve all things that live and move upon it. The earth in its de­vo­tion car­ries all things, good and evil, with­out ex­cep­tion. In the same way the su­pe­ri­or man gives to his char­ac­ter breadth, pu­ri­ty, and sus­tain­ing power, so that he is able both to sup­port and to bear with peo­ple and things.

The Lines

Six at the beginning means:
When there is hoarfrost underfoot,
Solid ice is not far off.

Just as the light-giv­ing power rep­re­sents life, so the dark power, the shad­owy, rep­re­sents death. When the first hoar­frost comes in the au­tumn, the power of dark­ness and cold is just at its be­gin­ning. After these first warn­ings, signs of death will grad­u­al­ly mul­ti­ply, until, in obe­di­ence to im­mutable laws, stark win­ter with its ice is here.

In life it is the same. After cer­tain scarce­ly no­tice­able signs of decay have ap­peared, they go on in­creas­ing until final dis­so­lu­tion comes. But in life pre­cau­tions can be taken by heed­ing the first signs of decay and check­ing them in time.

Six in the second place means:
Straight, square, great.
Without purpose,
Yet nothing remains unfurthered.

The sym­bol of heav­en is the cir­cle, and that of earth is the square. Thus square­ness is a pri­ma­ry qual­i­ty of the earth. On the other hand, move­ment in a straight line, as well as mag­ni­tude, is a pri­ma­ry qual­i­ty of the Cre­ative. But all square things have their ori­gin in a straight line and in turn form solid bod­ies. In math­e­mat­ics, when we dis­crim­i­nate be­tween lines, planes, and solids, we find that rec­tan­gu­lar planes re­sult from straight lines, and cubic mag­ni­tudes from rec­tan­gu­lar planes. The Re­cep­tive ac­com­mo­dates it­self to the qual­i­ties of the Cre­ative and makes them its own. Thus a square de­vel­ops out of a straight line and a cube out of a square. This is com­pli­ance with the laws of the Cre­ative; noth­ing is taken away, noth­ing added. There­fore the Re­cep­tive has no need of a spe­cial pur­pose of its own, nor of any ef­fort; yet every­thing turns out as it should.

Na­ture cre­ates all be­ings with­out erring: this is its straight­ness. It is calm and still: this is its foursquare­ness. It tol­er­ates all crea­tures equal­ly: this is its great­ness. There­fore it at­tains what is right for all with­out ar­ti­fice or spe­cial in­ten­tions. Man achieves the height of wis­dom when all that he does is as self- ev­i­dent as what na­ture does. »

Six in the third place means:
Hidden lines.
One is able to remain persevering.
If by chance you are in the service of a king,
Seek not works, but bring to completion.

If a man is free of van­i­ty he is able to con­ceal his abil­i­ties and keep them from at­tract­ing at­ten­tion too soon; thus he can ma­ture undis­turbed. If con­di­tions de­mand it, he can also enter pub­lic hfe, but that too he does with re­straint. The wise man glad­ly leaves fame to oth­ers. He does not seek to have cred­it­ed to him­self things that stand ac­com­plished, but hopes to re­lease ac­tive forces; that is, he com­pletes his works in such a man­ner that they may bear fruit for the fu­ture.

Six in the fourth place means:
A tied-up sack. No blame, no praise.

The dark el­e­ment opens when it moves and clos­es when at rest.2 The strictest ret­i­cence is in­di­cat­ed here. The time is dan­ger­ous, be­cause any de­gree of promi­nence leads ei­ther to the en­mi­ty of ir­re­sistible an­tag­o­nists if one chal­lenges them or to mis­con­ceived recog­ni­tion if one is com­plaisant. There­fore a man ought to main­tain re­serve, be it in soli­tude or in the tur­moil of the world, for there too he can hide him­self so well that no one knows him.

Six in the fifth place means:
A yellow lower garment brings supreme good fortune.

Yel­low is the color of the earth and of the mid­dle; it is the sym­bol of that which is re­li­able and gen­uine. The lower gar­ment is in­con­spic­u­ous­ly dec­o­rat­ed—the sym­bol of aris­to­crat­ic re­serve. When any­one is called upon to work in a promi­nent but not in­de­pen­dent po­si­tion, true suc­cess de­pends on the ut­most dis­cre­tion. A man’s gen­uine­ness and re­fine­ment should not re­veal them­selves di­rect­ly; they should ex­press them­selves only in­di­rect­ly as an ef­fect from with­in.

Six at the top means:
Dragons fight in the meadow.
Their blood is black and yellow.

In the top place the dark el­e­ment should yield to the light. If it at­tempts to main­tain a po­si­tion to which it is not en­ti­tled and to rule in­stead of serv­ing, it draws down upon it­self the anger of the strong. A strug­gle en­sues in which it is over­thrown, with in­jury, how­ev­er, to both sides. The drag­on, sym­bol of heav­en, comes to fight the false drag­on that sym­bol­izes the in­fla­tion of the earth prin­ci­ple. Mid­night blue is the color of heav­en; yel­low is the color of the earth. There­fore, when black and yel­low blood flow, it is a sign that in this un­nat­ur­al con­test both pri­mal pow­ers suf­fer in­jury.

When all the lines are sixes, it means:
Lasting perseverance furthers.

When noth­ing but sixes ap­pears, the hexa­gram of THE RE­CEP­TIVE changes into the hexa­gram of THE cre­ative. By hold­ing fast to what is right, it gains the power of en­dur­ing. There is in­deed no ad­vance, but nei­ther is there ret­ro­gres­sion.