Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 35: Progress

Splitting Apart
Mountain / Earth
Progress
Fire / Earth
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 4).

Line 4

六四 剝牀以膚。凶。

depriving
chuáng(the) bed
of (the use of)
(the
xiōngunfortunate

Six in the fourth place means: The bed is split up to the skin. Misfortune.

Trigram Changes

Upper TrigramMountain FireKeeping Still → The Clinging
Lower TrigramEarth Earth

Yilin Verse

鳧舞鼓翼,嘉樂堯德。虞夏美功,要荒賓服。

Ducks dance and beat their wings, rejoicing in the virtue of Yao. Yu and Xia's splendid achievement; the remote borderlands submit and serve.

— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE

Commentary

Mountain upon earth strips away, and fire emerges above the earth — Progress, brightness ascending. Wild ducks dance and beat their wings, celebrating the virtue of Emperor Yao. The achievements of the Yu and Xia eras are praised, and the remotest barbarian tribes submit as guests. The dancing waterfowl recalls the ancient description of animals responding to sage music — when governance is truly virtuous, even nature rejoices. Yao's virtue and the achievements of Yu and the Xia represent the golden age when civilization radiated outward, civilizing the farthest reaches. From Splitting Apart to Progress, the mountain's decay clears the horizon for the sun to rise unobstructed over the earth. The brightness that was once blocked by the mountain now shines freely, and its warmth reaches even the outermost lands.

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