謙 → 剝

Commentary

Earth holds the mountain in modesty, yet the original verse names Jie and Zhi — the archetypal tyrant and bandit — dwelling together, the people suffering, soldiers bearing grain and weapons, fighting between Qi and Lu. These are not distant legends but the immediate trauma of war among the central states. From Modesty to Splitting Apart, the mountain rests upon bare earth, its base eroding line by line — the image of institutional collapse from below. When tyrants and bandits jointly rule, the people are stripped of everything, just as the hexagram is stripped of its yang lines. Modesty's inner mountain, which should protect the people, instead becomes the crumbling structure that oppresses them. The verse warns that moral decay in leadership turns the state's own strength against its subjects.