Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 38: Opposition

Splitting Apart
Mountain / Earth
Opposition
Fire / Lake
Changing LinesStable Lines

Changing Lines

This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4).

Line 1

初六 剝牀以足。蔑貞凶。

depriving
chuáng(the) bed
of (the use of)
(the
miè(to) dismiss
zhēnpersistence
xiōng(is) unfortunate

Six at the beginning means: The leg of the bed is split. Those who persevere are destroyed. Misfortune.

Line 2

六二 剝牀以辨。蔑貞凶。

depriving
chuáng(the) bed
of (the use of)
biàn(the
miè(to) dismiss
zhēnpersistence
xiōng(is) unfortunate

Six in the second place means: The bed is split at the edge. Those who persevere are destroyed. Misfortune.

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 LakeThe Receptive → The Joyous

Yilin Verse

螟䖝為賊,害我禾穀。簞瓶空虛,飢無所食。

Caterpillars and grubs are the bane, ravaging my grain and crops. Bamboo baskets and jars stand empty; there is nothing to eat in hunger.

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

Commentary

Mountain upon earth decays into fire above lake — Opposition, where different elements face each other in tension. Caterpillars and grubs become pests, destroying grain and millet. The jars and bottles stand empty; there is nothing to eat in the famine. The pest invasion is a quiet catastrophe — not dramatic fire or flood but the slow, invisible consumption of the harvest by insects. The containers that should hold food are void, a domestic echo of the agricultural ruin outside. From Splitting Apart to Opposition, the mountain's erosion meets the divergence of fire and water. Fire rises while the lake sinks; above and below pull apart. The pests embody this Opposition: they are creatures of the same field as the grain, yet they destroy it. What should nourish and what devours share the same ground but move in opposite directions.

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