I Ching · 坤 kūn
The Receptive
Three yin lines — pure Earth, what welcomes, supports and fecundates
Family
The Mother
Animal
The Cow
Direction
Southwest
Season
Late summer
Element
Earth
Body
Belly
Virtue
The Receptive
Polarity
Pure yin (3 broken lines)
Symbolism
The character 坤 (kūn) evokes nourishing earth, the matrix, the receptacle. Composed of three broken yin lines, it represents the yin principle in its purest form — not passivity, but the welcome that makes manifestation possible.
Earth, in Chinese thought, is not inert matter: it is Heaven's accomplice, the soil that receives rain and transforms it into wheat. Its virtue is not to produce alone, but to fecundate what descends from Heaven. Without Kūn, Qián has nothing to fertilize; without Qián, Kūn has nothing to carry.
General meaning
Kūn designates the quality of reception. Receiving is not enduring: it is offering a space where something can take form. It is the listening that makes dialogue possible, the soil that makes growth possible, the patience that makes maturation possible.
Received in a reading, Kūn invites fertile suppleness — not effacement, but quiet firmness that knows how to welcome without distorting itself. The mare is its symbol: strong, enduring, capable of carrying without bending.
As upper trigram
When Earth is above, it brings the dimension of the matrix, of support, of welcoming context. The situation is held by something vaster, patient, that can carry the weight.
As lower trigram
When Earth is below, it is the soil from which everything can grow. The situation, its subject, is what needs a foothold both firm and supple, a ground to root in.
Hexagrams where it appears
This trigram enters 16 of the 64 hexagrams — 8 times as lower, 8 times as upper. The 8 pure hexagrams (where it is doubled) are flagged.
Frequently asked
- Why does the Yi Jing say "feminine" for Kūn — is that sexist?
- The term yin is not feminine in the sense of social gender. It designates a cosmic polarity: that which welcomes, structures, carries, as opposed to yang which initiates, radiates, penetrates. Every human being, whatever their gender, alternates yin and yang moments. The trigrammatic family (father/mother/sons/daughters) is a pedagogical metaphor, not a social assignment.
- What distinguishes Kūn from Gèn (Mountain), both being yin?
- Kūn is pure yin, totally receptive, fluid. Gèn is yin that stops, that sets a limit. Kūn welcomes everything; Gèn says "this far". Earth carries, Mountain poses. Received in a reading, Kūn speaks of fertility; Gèn of willed immobility.
- What does doubled Kūn (Hexagram 2) mean?
- Hexagram 2 is the only entirely yin one. Its classic image is the mare — the fecund force par excellence: capable of carrying the rider, crossing long distances, never imposing itself. The lesson: the true power of the Receptive is not the absence of force, it is a force that does not show itself.