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(Hey! Look! Someone actually reads this thing! I better look smart, quick! Uh, uh, uh… oh, heck.)
It seems to me that this is one of those hexagrams that got named for the way it looks on the page — like a zipper opening, or a seam splitting. Personally, I can’t help but think of this in terms of the previous hexagram, which was all about ornamentation. Maybe this is the collapse that follows gilding the lily. So, let’s see about that systematically.
What’s the character mean?
The character for bo consists of a picture of a dao, an old knife (or short sword — origin of the Japanese to, thank you Frank Miller comics) to the right of a piece of wood. It’s a picture of whittling, in other words — or perhaps scraping off excess ornamentation. Huang actually translates this as “Falling Away,” and says that’s what happens when ornamentation (from the previous hexagram) becomes excessive. He also links it to landslides, or more metaphorically, to moral decline, although he says the same character can be pronounced “bao“, in which case it means peeling, like a banana.
What’s on the top?
The outer trigram is gen, the big sturdy mountain what rises above the earth.
What’s on the bottom?
The inner trigram is kun, the earth itself, receptive & passive.
What’s in the guts?
The nuclear trigrams are also both kun. It’s passive all the way, here. This can be read two ways, it seems to me — either the mountain is projecting upward out of all this earth (as mountains do), or it’s lying down on the earth, having fallen (which is the reading Huang seems to favor). The one solid line is resting on a foundation of weakness. Hmm.
What’s it from far away?
The Judgement and Image verses are all about ducking, covering and (I hate to use this word) appeasing.
Check out the Judgement verse, followed by Wilhelm’s commentary:
SPLITTING APART.
It does not further one
To go anywhere.This pictures a time when inferior people are pushing forward and are about to crowd out the few remaining strong and superior men. Under these circumstances, which are due to the time, it is not favorable for the superior man to undertake anything.
In other words, you might as well stay in bed. The Image verse goes even farther, explaining that “those above can ensure their position/Only by giving generously to those below.” If the tall mountain is resting on the docile earth, that means it relies on the earth to stay upright. If the earth moves against that mountain (if all that yin turns against that one, puny little yang line), then it’ll easily topple over. The people in charge have no power.
What’s it saying up close?
The Lines verses depict a bed, splitting — the situation is like a resting place with unsteady legs, I think that means — or, in the final, topmost place, picking fruit that has finally come within reach.
I’m most interested in the third and fifth lines, though. These refer to two ways of dealing with groups. In the third line, we’re warned to separate ourself from groups of inferior people. Those punk friends of ours are just gonna drag us down. But in the fifth line, we’re told that leading the gang isn’t so bad, as long as we’ve got our eyes on the prize. Because this line is so close to the “light” of the top line, Wilhelm explains,
the nature of the dark force undergoes a change. It no longer opposes the strong principle by means of intrigues but submits to its guidance. Indeed, as the head of the other weak lines, it leads all of these to the strong line, just as a princess leads her maids-in-waiting like a shoal of fishes to her husband and thus gains his favor.
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I’m using the Wilhelm/Baynes translation from the comprehensive Wengu collection or the user-friendly Eclectic Energies site, and I’m taking the character translations from my trusty copy of Alfred Huang’s The Complete I Ching. Feel like going deeper? Check out Hong Kong’s Taoist Culture & Information Centre’s I Ching page, and the essays & reviews on Ma Xia’s Yijing Page
