剝 → 離
Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 30: The Clinging Fire
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 6).
Line 1
初六 剝牀以足。蔑貞凶。
Six at the beginning means: The leg of the bed is split. Those who persevere are destroyed. Misfortune.
Line 4
六四 剝牀以膚。凶。
Six in the fourth place means: The bed is split up to the skin. Misfortune.
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
禮壞樂崩，成子傲慢。欲求致理，力疲心爛。陰陽不調，成子驕傲，為簡生殃。
Rites crumble, music collapses; Chengzi is arrogant and rude. Seeking to restore good order, strength is spent and the heart worn through. Yin and yang fall out of balance; Chengzi's pride brings calamity upon Jian.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A mountain crumbling upon the earth gives way to doubled fire: ritual collapses and music falls silent. Tian Chengzi, the powerful minister of Qi, grows arrogant beyond all restraint. In 481 BC he assassinated Duke Jian of Qi, the same year the qilin was captured in Lu, marking the end of the Spring and Autumn moral order. The verse names him twice, stressing his insolence as cause of the disaster. Despite efforts to restore good governance, the state's energy is exhausted and its heart rotten. From Splitting Apart to The Clinging, the transformation reveals how institutional decay exposes raw, destructive brilliance: when the mountain's slow erosion is complete, only fire remains, and fire without structure simply burns everything down.
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