Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart
Bo · 剝
The Judgment
It does not further one to go anywhere. Inferior forces push forward, crowding out the remaining strong. The time favors dissolution, not action. Wait. Give generously to those below to stabilize what remains.
The Image
The mountain rests on earth. Those above secure their position only by giving to those below. Without a broad base, the steep mountain topples. Generosity is structural, not optional.
「山附於地，剝。上以厚下安宅。」山依附在大地上。山如果又陡又窄，沒有寬闊的底座，就會倒塌。同樣的道理：在上面的人，必須厚待下面的人，才能穩固。慷慨不是選擇，是結構——沒有根基，什麼都站不住。
The Six Lines
The bed is split at the legs. Perseverance destroyed. Misfortune. The foundation breaks first. What rests on it cannot survive. Collapse begins below.
The bed is split at the frame. Perseverance destroyed. Misfortune. The support structure fails. The splitting continues upward, unstoppable now.
Splitting among them. No blame. You can split from the decaying situation without incurring blame. Sometimes separation is the only right action.
The bed is split to the skin. Misfortune. Now the person themselves is affected. The collapse has reached living flesh. Very bad.
A string of fishes. Favor through the palace ladies. Nothing that does not further. Even in collapse, order can be restored through right sequence, like fish strung together, like court ladies in rank.
The large fruit is not eaten. The person of character gains a carriage. Small people split apart their huts. The seed remains—the great fruit that isn't consumed becomes the next cycle. The worthy survive; the petty destroy even their own shelter.
Artwork & Treatise
Nebuchadnezzar
William Blake, 1795
King Nebuchadnezzar crawls on all fours through wilderness, his body reduced to animal form. William Blake illustrated this biblical story in 1795, showing the Babylonian monarch driven from his throne as punishment for pride. Wild hair streams down his back, fingernails have grown into claws, and his eyes stare forward with neither recognition nor comprehension. The king who built gardens and conquered nations now eats grass like cattle, his human identity disintegrated.
This is Bō (剝), Splitting Apart—the character showing a knife cutting away from whole cloth. The hexagram shows Mountain (Gèn) above Earth (Kūn): stillness perched precariously over the receptive. Five yin lines rise from below, with only one yang line remaining at the top—an image of systematic erosion, layer after layer stripped away until almost nothing holds. In Zhou Dynasty divination, this configuration appeared when collapse had progressed too far for repair, when the wise withdrew rather than resist the inevitable.
{artwork_reasoning}
The Judgment text offers stark counsel: "Splitting Apart. It does not further one to go anywhere." When disintegration reaches this stage, action accelerates decay. Ancient practitioners understood this as the time to yield, to accept diminishment, to preserve what little remains rather than exhaust it fighting entropy. Blake depicts the moment when Nebuchadnezzar's reason splits from his body—no action he might take could prevent what divine judgment set in motion. The text does not promise recovery; it counsels stillness.
The Image Text observes: "The mountain rests on the earth: the image of Splitting Apart. Thus those above can ensure their position only by giving generously to those below." Even in decay, there are responses. When the foundation erodes, those who remain at the top survive only by distributing what they have, by releasing their grip on position. Blake painted this late in life, having witnessed both French and American revolutions—moments when old orders split apart beneath the pressure of accumulated grievances. In the I-Ching sequence, Splitting Apart follows Grace: when decoration can no longer hide structural failure, disintegration proceeds. The next hexagram is Return, the winter solstice point where decline finally reverses.
Yilin Verse
行觸大忌，與司命牾。執囚束縛，拘制於吏。幽人有喜。
Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — Unchanging verse for 剝 (Bō)
Character-by-Character Breakdown
Classical Chinese text with pinyin and English meanings