鼎 → 剝
Hexagram 50: The Cauldron → Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 6).
Line 2
九二 鼎有實。我仇有疾。不我能即。吉。
Nine in the second place means: There is food in the ting. My comrades are envious, But they cannot harm me. Good fortune.
Line 4
九四 鼎折足。覆公餗。其形渥。凶。
Nine in the fourth place means: The legs of the ting are broken. The prince's meal is spilled And his person is soiled. Misfortune. A man has a difficult and responsible task to which he is not adequate. Moreover, he does not devote himself to it with all his strength but goes about with inferior people; therefore the execution of the work fails. In this way he also incurs personal opprobrium. Confucius says about this line: "Weak character coupled with honored place, meager knowledge with large plans, limited powers with heavy responsibility, will seldom escape disaster. "
Line 6
上九 鼎玉鉉。大吉。无不利。
Nine at the top means: The ting has rings of jade. Great good fortune. Nothing that would not act to further.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
切膚近火，虎絕我鬚。小人橫暴，君復何之？
Scorching the skin near the fire; the tiger tears away my whiskers. Petty men rage with violence; where, then, shall the lord turn?
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire over wind fills the cauldron, but the mountain rests upon earth as support crumbles in Splitting Apart. Skin draws too close to fire and singes; a tiger bites off one's whiskers. Petty men run rampant, and the gentleman has nowhere left to go. The cauldron's fire, approached without care, burns rather than nourishes. The tiger represents unchecked violent power — small men who seize authority through brute intimidation. The gentleman is left asking 'where now?' as his world strips away around him. From The Cauldron to Splitting Apart, the transformation traces the systematic erosion of civilized order. Mountain clinging to earth, each line peeling away from below — the cauldron's sacred fire becomes a threat, and even its intended beneficiaries get scorched.
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