36–Earth over Fire: Ming Yi / Illumination Blackened

Translation for the Hexagram Title

• Wing: Censorship
• Huang: Brilliance Injured
• Pearson: Wounded Light
• Hinton: Illumination Blackened

The Decision

Pearson: “The light is wounded. In difficulties it is effective to persevere.”

Hinton: “When illumination is blackened, move inexhaustible through difficulty and you’ll find wild bounty.”

The Image

Huang: “The light enters into the earth; the light (of the moon) darkens. Within, cultivate the light; outwardly, yield gently. By bearing great difficulties, King Wen used them to benefit himself and others.”

Hinton: “Sun and moon sinking all vast illumination below the earth: that is Illumination Blackened. Using it, noble-minded people guide the people. And they use darkness to abide in illumination itself.”

Yao Lines

The Yao lines describe a bird injured while flying, a more serious injury requiring one to seek a strong horse, a great chief captured in a hunt, an injury entering the left belly, perhaps near the heart–escalating wounds.

The Commentaries

The commentary mentions four people who responded to the revolution of the Zhou against the Shang tyranny in varying ways and who are yet all considered exemplars of integrity:

Bai Yi and his brother Sou Qi remained loyal to the Shang despite their disagreement with the tyrant; they simply didn’t agree with any revolution or overthrow of the regime. During the famine that followed the Zhou revolution’s victory, they refused the millet offered by the Zhou and died after retreating to Shou Yang Mountain. Although they may have stubbornly chosen the wrong side of history, Mencius praised their integrity.

Wen Zi, an elder brother of the Sheng tyrant, fled the court for Zhou territory and was a ruler in the Zhou reconstruction.

JiZi was the Shang tyrant’s uncle. He was in danger for arguing with the tyrant and was urged to go into exile. He felt that would be a betrayal so survived by pretending to be insane so that he was driven from the palace to live as a slave. After the revolution JiZi was a consultant to the victorious King Wu of Zhou and is quoted in the Classics of History.

Impossible times led different people to very different paths to cope. According to the Grand Historian Sima Qian, “Confucius said, ‘Men who follow different ways cannot make judgments for one another.” (Sima Qian’s biography of the four is included in Stephen Owen’s An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911, published by W.W. Norton & Company.)

Personal Reflections

On January 24, 2024, Israel bombed a building complex in Khan Yunis that housed tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians who had sought refuge, causing a massive fire. At least 214 were counted dead in the initial reports. The escalating brutality of the Israeli assault was a shock to humanity. I did several variations of this watercolor over the course of three months, incorporating small details from news images to illustrate what genuinely seemed like the darkening of all light.

“Ming” is interesting to me from the historical perspective. Zhu Yuanzhang is one of the few emperors who rose from remarkable poverty to the highest power. When orphaned as a child he found refuge in a Buddhist monastery and spent years wandering with a begging bowl. Later he became a leader of the Red Turbans, who were fighting the Yuan Dynasty overlords and who were inspired by prophecies about the coming Maitreya Buddha and “Prince of Light.” When his forces defeated the Yuan, Zhu Yuanzhang named his dynasty the “Ming” to associate it with messianic aspirations for peace and prosperity, even though he banned the religious sects that had fueled his success.

The fight against the foreign Yuan (such a small minority then ruling China) and the fervent aspirations for a Prince of Light echo down to our time when such a small minority of tech overlords dominate our society. And the scenes of brutality from the end of the Shang Dynasty feel reflected in the brutality of the Gaza genocide. So it is some comfort to reflect on times when revolutions succeeded in the long past.

It is a time to, as the translation says, “use darkness to abide in illumination itself.”

However, I really stumble over the admonition that “Men who follow different ways cannot make judgments for one another.” I do judge them. I am glad Bai Yi and She Qi starved to death alone on their mountain; it was appropriate for their ongoing allegiance to a tyrant when they recognized his evil.

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