Bo · Splitting Apart

The meaning

What the name means Bo is stripping away, layer after layer.

The picture A mountain resting on the earth, its height being worn away layer by layer, its base growing thin.

The sense of the whole The whole hexagram is about a time of decline. Do not prop up a front by force; follow the situation, draw in, keep the one thing that matters most, and wait for the turn.

In plain words: what this hexagram says

Things are being lost layer by layer. Do not cling and push to save it all; guard the root and wait for the next turn.

The upper trigram is Mountain and the lower is Earth: Mountain above, Earth below. When you read it, first picture the two together as a scene, then set it against the original below. The plain words speak only of stance and do not foretell.

The judgement

不利有攸往。

The image

山附於地，剝；上以厚下安宅。

The six lines

From the bottom up, the first line is the lowest. When you cast this hexagram and a line is changing, read the matching one. The original is classical Chinese.

1. 初六剝床以足，蔑貞兇。
2. 六二剝床以辨，蔑貞兇。
3. 六三剝之，無咎。
4. 六四剝床以膚，兇。
5. 六五貫魚，以宮人寵，無不利。
6. 上九碩果不食，君子得輿，小人剝廬。

To learn how to read a hexagram, see "How to read a hexagram"; for changing lines, see "Changing lines and the resulting hexagram".