The Seal of the Unity of the Three - The Golden Elixir

14 Notes
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Changes: “Qian and Kun are indeed the door and the gate of
change!” (B.5; see Wilhelm, 343).
2. The father and the mother of all hexagrams. Compare Book of
Changes, “Explanation of the Trigrams”: “Qian is Heaven, therefore he is
called the father. Kun is Earth, therefore she is called the mother” (sec. 9;
see Wilhelm, 274). See also the “Commentary on the Judgement” on the
hexagrams Qian (no. 1) and Kun (no. 2): “Great indeed is Qian, the
Origin! The ten thousand things owe their beginning to him . . . Perfect
indeed is Kun, the Origin! The ten thousand things owe their birth to
her” (see Wilhelm, 370 and 386).
3. Kan and Li are the inner and the outer walls. In the trigrams Kan
and Li , the lower lines are the “inner wall,” and the upper lines are the
“outer wall.” The central lines respectively belong to Qian and Kun .
7. Sun and Moon make change
The Moon is Kan and the Sun is Li . However, although the Yin
trigram Kan is associated with the Moon, it encloses a solid Yang line
that belongs to Qian . This line corresponds to the celestial stem wu
, an emblem of the active, creative aspect of the One. Analogously,
the Yang trigram Li is associated with the Sun, but encloses a broken
Yin line that belongs to Kun . This line corresponds to the celestial
stem ji , representing the passive, fulfilling aspect of the One. When
Qian and Kun are contained within Kan and Li, they are called the
“essence” (jing) of the Moon and the “radiance” (guang) of the Sun.
The alternation of the Sun and the Moon produces change. With
regard to this, the Cantong qi observes that when the graphs that
represent the Sun and the Moon are joined to one another, with the
graph for “sun” (ri ) placed above the graph for “moon” (yue ),
they form the graph for “change” (yi ). This etymology of the word
“change” does not pertain to philology, but is an example of the
analogical function of images and forms.
In addition to being associated with True Yang (Qian) and True
Yin (Kun), the celestial stems wu and ji are also emblems of the
central agent Soil, which, like the One, comprises Yin and Yang
halves. Soil transmits the One Breath to the four directions and the
four seasons—i.e., to space and time—which correspond to the agents
Wood, Fire, Water, and Metal, referred to here by the colors green,
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