EN (English)
䷖
Hexagram 23 of 64
Splitting Apart
剝 · Bō
Five yin lines have risen and only one yang line remains at the top. The hexagram describes decay that has almost finished, and the classic's counsel is to do nothing.
erosion
decline
patience
holding on
- King Wen number
- 23 of 64
- Above
- ☶ Gèn · Mountain
- Below
- ☷ Kūn · Earth
- Composition
- Mountain over Earth
- Lines, bottom to top
- Broken · broken · broken · broken · broken · solid
- Chinese
- 剝 · Bō
The Judgment
It does not help to go anywhere.
Five characters, no consolation offered. Movement in these conditions accelerates the collapse.
The Image
The mountain rests on the earth: Splitting Apart. So those above secure their position by being generous to those below.
The only remedy in the hexagram, and it is preventive. Erosion from below is answered by what you gave downward earlier.
What it means
Bo is a hexagram of erosion. One yang line remains at the very top, and everything under it has already turned. The classic uses the image of a bed being dismantled from the legs upward while someone is still lying in it, which is a more frightening picture than most of the book allows itself.
Its counsel is unusually passive. Do not go anywhere. There is no undertaking that improves this, and each line that tries to persist is destroyed. The third line's small dignity consists entirely of stepping out of the process.
Two lines change the temperature. The fifth has the yin lines strung together like fish on a line and led through the palace, which the commentators read as the destructive force being organised and thereby made harmless. And the top line offers the classic's favourite consolation: the large fruit that was not eaten. Nothing is left except a seed, and a seed is what hexagram 24 grows from.
The Image gives the only real prevention. Positions on top are secured by generosity downward, well before the legs of the bed start going.
In a reading
Splitting Apart as an answer describes a situation in genuine decline, where the loss is structural and already well advanced.
Its counsel is to stop investing, avoid new undertakings, and separate yourself from what is coming apart. It is not a hopeless hexagram. The top line insists something survives, and the next figure in the sequence is Return.
The six lines
Read a line's text only when the cast made it a moving line. They are listed from the top of the figure down, the way the hexagram is drawn.
-
Nine at the top
A large fruit is left uneaten. The noble person is given a carriage; the small person's own roof is stripped away.
The seed that was not consumed. The same exhausted moment carries a vehicle for one person and the loss of shelter for another.
-
Six in the fifth place
A string of fishes. Favour comes through the palace women. Nothing that does not further.
The turn. What was undermining the structure lines up and is led, and the hexagram becomes survivable.
-
Six in the fourth place
The bed is split up to the skin. Misfortune.
It has arrived at the person lying in it. The text says nothing more.
-
Six in the third place
He splits away from them. No blame.
Separating from the process instead of participating in it. The one clean line in the lower half.
-
Six in the second place
The bed is split at the frame. Those who persist are destroyed. Misfortune.
Higher, and still ignored. The repetition is the message.
-
Six at the beginning
The bed is split at the legs. Those who persist are destroyed. Misfortune.
It begins at the furthest point from where anyone is looking.
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