剝 → 升
Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 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 3
六三 剝之无咎。
Six in the third place means: He splits with them. No blame.
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
鴻飛循陸，公出不復。伯氏客宿。
The wild goose flies along the land; the duke goes forth and does not return. The elder brother lodges as a guest.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain upon earth erodes, and from within the earth a tree pushes upward — Pushing Upward, the slow and steady rise. A wild goose follows the land on its gradual path. The duke departs and does not return. The elder brother lodges as a guest. The 'hong' (wild goose) is the Yi's emblematic bird of gradual, orderly advancement — it follows the coastline rather than crossing the open sea. But here the duke who leaves never comes back, and the elder must accept the reduced status of a house guest. From Splitting Apart to Pushing Upward, the mountain's collapse opens the soil for wood to grow from below. The goose's patient path resonates with Pushing Upward's step-by-step ascent, yet the verse carries an elegiac note: the one who departed does not return to see the new growth, and those left behind must make do in diminished circumstances.
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