Hexagram 23 of 64 · King Wen sequence

Splitting Apart

剥 · bō

Above: Mountain
Below: Earth

Mountain above earth: things peeling away layer by layer — decay advancing, and the quiet instruction to hold the bed.

Stripping, stripping, until what remains is thin: Splitting Apart is the hexagram of erosion — the season when things leave, weaken, and fall away faster than they can be replaced. Its cruelty is gradualism: each loss is small; the total is not.

The counsel is minimalism as survival. Eat, if you must; get a proper bed. In modern terms: cut to the load-bearing walls, protect the core relationships and the core capability, and do not decorate anything during a landslide.

Questions this hexagram asks

What is peeling — and is it the structure, or just the paint?
What is the load-bearing core I must not lose?
What am I still decorating that should be cut to protect the bed?

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