損 → 剝
Hexagram 41: Decrease → Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 2).
Line 1
初九 已事遄往。无咎。酌損之。
Nine at the beginning means: Going quickly when one's tasks are finished Is without blame. But one must reflect on how much one may decrease others.
Line 2
九二 利貞。征凶。弗損益之。
Nine in the second place means: Perseverance furthers. To undertake something brings misfortune. Without decreasing oneself, One is able to bring increase to others.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
貧鬼守門，日破我盆。毀罌傷瓶，空虛無子。
The ghost of poverty guards the gate, daily smashing my pots. Urns destroyed, jars broken; empty and hollow, without heir.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain above lake becomes mountain above earth — Splitting Apart, where the mountain erodes from below until only the topmost line remains. A poverty ghost guards the door, smashing the basin every day. Jars are shattered, bottles broken, and the household is left empty and without heirs. The verse catalogues destruction with methodical thoroughness: each vessel broken is another piece of the household's substance stripped away. The 'poverty ghost' is a folk figure who brings relentless bad luck. From Decrease to Splitting Apart, the lake beneath the mountain dries into bare earth, and the mountain itself begins to crumble. Decrease here has passed its useful limit and become pure erosion — not voluntary sacrifice but involuntary disintegration, leaving nothing behind.
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