剝 → 坎
Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 29: The Abysmal Water
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 5, 6).
Line 2
六二 剝牀以辨。蔑貞凶。
Six in the second place means: The bed is split at the edge. Those who persevere are destroyed. Misfortune.
Line 5
六五 貫魚。以宮人寵。无不利。
Six in the fifth place means: A shoal of fishes. Favor comes through the court ladies. Everything acts to further.
Line 6
上九 碩果不食。君子得輿。小人剝廬。
Nine at the top means: There is a large fruit still uneaten. The superior man receives a carriage. The house of the inferior man is split apart.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
乘騮駕驪，東至于齊。遭遇仁友，送我以資，厚得利歸。
Riding a bay and driving a black, east to the land of Qi. Meeting a benevolent friend, he sends me off with provisions; richly rewarded, I return home.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain upon earth erodes into doubled water — the Abysmal, peril repeated. One drives a dark bay and harnesses a black horse, traveling east to the state of Qi. There, one encounters a benevolent friend who sends one off with provisions, and one returns home with generous profits. The verse defies the Abysmal's reputation for danger: riding through the doubled abyss, the traveler finds not drowning but friendship and wealth. The journey to Qi — the great eastern state renowned for its commerce — suggests a trading venture that succeeds against the odds. From Splitting Apart to the Abysmal, the mountain's collapse plunges one into deep water, but water also forms the roads of commerce. One who maintains inner sincerity through danger, as the Abysmal demands, discovers that the abyss itself can be navigated for profit.
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