剝 → 鼎
Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart → Hexagram 50: The Cauldron
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 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 4
六四 剝牀以膚。凶。
Six in the fourth place means: The bed is split up to the skin. Misfortune.
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
泥面亂頭，忍恥少羞。日以削消，凶其自搯。
Mud on the face, hair in disarray; enduring shame with little modesty. Day by day pared away; the misfortune is of one's own making.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain upon earth strips away, revealing fire above wind — the Cauldron, vessel of civilized transformation. A muddied face and disheveled hair, enduring shame with scarcely any dignity. Day by day one is diminished and consumed; misfortune is self-inflicted. The Cauldron should transform raw material into refined nourishment through the application of fire and wind, but here the person is the one being consumed. Mud on the face and disordered hair are signs of degradation — the loss of the human markers of civilization. The daily 'cutting away' (xiao) echoes Splitting Apart's gradual erosion, now applied to personal dignity. From Splitting Apart to the Cauldron, the mountain's decay should feed the transformative vessel, but instead the person becomes the raw material being burned down. The cauldron's fire, without proper substance, merely destroys.
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