Hexagram 23 · Bō 剝 Peeling Away

剝，不利有攸往。

Bo: it is not favorable to have somewhere to go.

Bo means things dropping away, as Zhu Xi glosses it. Five yin lines have grown up from below and a single yang line remains at the top, close to being stripped off; this is the hexagram of the ninth month. In human terms, he says, petty people are strong and noble people are in distress. The inner trigram yields to the time and the outer one stops, so the text advises against setting out. The picture is of a season to be recognized before anything is attempted.

山附於地，剝。上以厚下安宅。

The mountain clings to the earth: Bo. Those above build up what lies below them, and so keep their house secure.

Zhu Xi adds no comment to this sentence, so it stands on its own picture. A mountain depends on the ground it sits on. In a time of stripping away, the sentence turns attention to that base: those above build up what lies beneath them, and that is what keeps their own house secure.

Line 1, yin (初六)changing line in the shared reading

剝牀以足，蔑貞凶。

Stripping the bed at its legs. When correctness is destroyed, misfortune.

Stripping begins at the bottom, so the first image is a bed losing its legs. Zhu Xi glosses 蔑 as “to destroy”: once what is correct has been destroyed, misfortune follows. The first line (初六) shows the wearing away at its starting point, still at the edges but already aimed at what holds things up.

Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading

剝牀以辨，蔑貞凶。

Stripping the bed at its frame. When correctness is destroyed, misfortune.

The same words return with one change: now it is the frame of the bed that is being stripped, which is how Zhu Xi glosses 辨. His only comment is that the stripping has moved up. With the second line (六二) the damage is closer to whoever lies on the bed, and the verdict stays the same.

Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading

剝之，无咎。

Stripping, yet no blame.

All the yin lines are wearing away the yang, but the third (六三) is the one that answers the yang line at the top. Zhu Xi reads it as leaving its own crowd to side with what is correct, which is why there is no blame. In his note on the fourth line of Hexagram 24, Fu, he pairs this line with that one as examples of doing what is right without scheming for profit.

Line 4, yin (六四)changing line in the shared reading

剝牀以膚，凶。

Stripping the bed, it reaches the skin. Misfortune.

After the legs and the frame, the stripping reaches the skin of the one lying on the bed. Zhu Xi points out the change in wording: the earlier lines spoke of correctness being destroyed, but here the harm has touched the body itself, so the text says misfortune directly. Leg, frame, skin: the hexagram's whole movement appears in small.

Line 5, yin (六五)changing line in the shared reading

貫魚，以宮人寵，无不利。

Fish strung on one line; favor comes by way of the palace women. Nothing that is not favorable.

The fifth line (六五) stands at the head of all the yin lines. Zhu Xi calls fish yin creatures, and palace women the finest of the yin, who accept direction from the yang. Instead of joining the others in stripping, the fifth leads its kind in an orderly row, like fish on a string, to receive the favor of the one yang above. So the text finds nothing unfavorable.

Top line, yang (上九)changing line in the shared reading

碩果不食，君子得輿，小人剝廬。

A great fruit, left uneaten. The noble person gains a carriage; the petty person has his hut stripped away.

One yang line remains at the top, a large fruit no one has eaten, and Zhu Xi notes that what is not stripped completely can grow again. The same place yields two outcomes. A noble person here is carried by all the yin below, as in a carriage. A petty person strips away the last thing that shelters him, and neither fruit nor carriage remains. Zhu Xi sees the sage's concern in that split.