剝 → 損
Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 41: Decrease
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 2).
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 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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
牧羊稻園，聞虎喧嚾。懼畏悚息，終無禍患。
Herding sheep in the rice garden; hearing a tiger's roar. Afraid and holding one's breath; in the end no calamity befalls.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain upon earth strips away, yielding to mountain above lake — Decrease, where the lower is diminished to benefit the upper. A shepherd tends his flock in a rice paddy and hears a tiger roaring nearby. Fear and trembling seize him, yet in the end no disaster comes. The tiger's roar is terrifying but does not materialize into attack. The shepherd's fear itself is the 'decrease' — his peace of mind is sacrificed, but his body and flock survive intact. From Splitting Apart to Decrease, the mountain's erosion opens space for the lake below to be drained upward. The shepherd experiences this as alarm without substance: the threat is real but the loss is only psychological. Decrease teaches that restraining desire and curbing anger protect against actual harm. The tiger roars; the shepherd trembles; nothing else happens.
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