剝 → 困
Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 47: Oppression
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 5).
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 4
六四 剝牀以膚。凶。
Six in the fourth place means: The bed is split up to the skin. Misfortune.
Line 5
六五 貫魚。以宮人寵。无不利。
Six in the fifth place means: A shoal of fishes. Favor comes through the court ladies. Everything acts to further.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
桑芳將落，隕其黃葉。失勢傾側，如無所得。
The mulberry's fragrant bloom is about to fall, shedding its yellow leaves. Losing its footing, tilting to the side; as if gaining nothing at all.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain upon earth decays into lake without water — Oppression, the driest of hexagrams. The mulberry tree, once fragrant, is about to drop its yellowed leaves. Power lost, it tilts and tumbles, as though nothing can be gained. The mulberry is a tree of civilization — its leaves feed silkworms, its presence marks settled agriculture — and its death signals the collapse of the productive order. Yellow leaves falling recall autumn's melancholy, but here the tree has not merely aged; it has 'lost its position' (shi shi), a political term for being deprived of rank. From Splitting Apart to Oppression, the mountain's erosion drains into a lake that holds no water. The mulberry, stripped of leaves and tilting, mirrors the emptied lake: a container from which all sustenance has been removed. Oppression's path is to 'stake one's life to fulfill one's purpose,' but first one must acknowledge the barrenness.
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