剝 → 謙

Commentary

Mountain upon earth collapses into earth containing a mountain — Modesty, where the great humbles itself beneath the small. Three women share one husband, yet suddenly cease to think of one another. Their hearts are perpetually sorrowful, their faces never at ease. The domestic arrangement that should embody harmonious hierarchy instead breeds alienation. No one fights openly, but affection has simply evaporated. From Splitting Apart to Modesty, the mountain that once rose above the earth now lies buried within it. The three wives mirror this inverted structure: outwardly they share the same household, but inwardly each is isolated. Modesty at its best equalizes and distributes fairly; here it manifests as emotional leveling — all reduced to the same joyless plane, none favored, none content.