比 → 剝
Hexagram 8: Holding Together → Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 5, 6).
Line 5
九五 顯比。王用三驅。失前禽。邑人不誡。吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: Manifestation of holding together. In the hunt the king uses beaters on three sides only And forgoes game that runs off in front. The citizens need no warning. Good fortune.
Line 6
上六 比之无首。凶。
Six at the top means: He finds no head for holding together. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
伯夷叔齊，貞廉之師。以德防患，憂禍不存。
Bo Yi and Shu Qi; paragons of integrity and purity. With virtue they guarded against calamity; worry and misfortune did not endure.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water upon earth sustains integrity even as structures crumble. Boyi and Shuqi — the princes who refused to eat Zhou grain after the conquest of Shang — stand as paragons of incorruptible loyalty. They chose starvation on Mount Shouyang over moral compromise. The verse names them 'teachers of chaste integrity' and declares that virtue itself wards off disaster: 'using virtue to guard against calamity, worry and misfortune have no foothold.' From Holding Together to Splitting Apart, the transformation is paradoxical: Bo's mountain eroding upon earth suggests disintegration, yet the verse insists that principled men survive the collapse. When the edifice crumbles, those anchored in moral bedrock remain standing. Alliance with virtue outlasts alliance with power.
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