I Ching Bo Meaning: Hexagram 23 Explained

Draw Bo 剝 and in class someone’s face sinks first. Bo sounds like being pared, hollowed. Students often say straight: it is over, luck is falling.

That is only half right. Bo is indeed falling. It is not the sky collapsing. It is the below emptying first, while above still thinks itself high. The most costly practice then is not admitting decline. It is forcing through, grinding, eating even that last fruit.

Mountain over Earth: the mountain is still there; the soil is drawn first

Bo is Mountain over Earth, Splitting Apart. Upper Gen 艮, mountain; lower Kun 坤, earth. The mountain attached to the earth. Soil taken layer by layer, the mountain’s foot empty, the mountain still standing. Looks majestic; the structure is already peeling.

Do not reverse above and below. Some people read Bo as Earth over Thunder, Fu 復. That is the next hexagram. Fu is one yang below growing up. Bo is five yins below growing up, only that one yang on top left. Yin peeling yang. Reverse the direction and the whole reading reverses.

The Xugua says: 「致飾然後亨則盡矣，故受之以剝。剝者，剝也。」 Ornament taken to the limit, then opening is exhausted; therefore Bo follows. Bo is peeling. Before it is Bi (Grace) 賁: ornament, taking face to the limit. Splendor used up, it starts to fall. Things do not peel for no reason. After fullness, ornament, grinding: then this hexagram’s turn.

The Tuan says: 「剝，剝也，柔變剛也。不利有攸往，小人長也。」 Bo is peeling; the yielding changes the firm. Not beneficial to go forth: not cursing you never to leave the house this life. In this hexagram’s sequence, attacking outward, charging up, turning the board: few succeed, many tear the wound larger. Small people growing: the breath of erosion is growing, not necessarily naming a certain bad person. Draw Bo, though, and in people you do have to look: who is drawing your bed-leg.

The Xiang says: 「山附於地，剝。上以厚下安宅。」 Mountain attached to earth, Bo. Those above thicken those below, and the house is at ease. Draw Bo and still squeeze people under you, the body, cash harder: you yourself speed Bo.

Career and wealth: first protect the bed-leg

Ask about career and draw Bo: overall do not open a new battlefield. Clients dropping, people leaving, a process changed until you cannot recognize it, a post emptied: all Bo’s daily face. The bed is what you sleep against: the bottom you thought most steady. The problem first appears where you cannot see, or are too lazy to look: the base, cash flow, the body, contract details.

The most expensive tuition then is “I will prove it is not over.” Not beneficial to go forth: do not use Qian 乾’s set to fight Bo. Plans can be written, people seen; expansion, leverage, a public showdown: stop first. Keep the people still there, hold the cash still there, finish the proper work still doable: that is holding. Issuing a statement, holding a high meeting, going hard against the other party: mostly finding Bo more accurately.

For wealth, Bo is not necessarily bankruptcy. Assets pared layer by layer. Income thinning, expenses still there, money promised to you will drag; guarantees and borrowing a name especially dangerous. Large investment, refinancing to fill a hole: treat as a red light. Holding principal matters more than chasing return. Sell the empty fat first; cut the scenes that can be cut. The mountain is still there; that does not mean the soil is still enough.

Bo’s six lines are not equally black. Initial six, six in the second, six in the fourth: the bed peeled from the foot to the skin, each nearer the flesh. Six in the third, peeling it, no blame: in the yin there is still one not following the wind to peel. Six in the fifth can put the order right; the upper nine is the place of leaving seed. So draw Bo and you must look at which line. Peeling of the bed-leg tells you to squat. Peeling of the ripe fruit tells you to leave the pit.

People: not every distance is betrayal, but this time it is truly dropping

Ask about love and draw Bo: the relationship is reducing, not adding. Shared time pared, patience pared, dignity pared. Not necessarily a breakup. Adding romance now, forcing the other person to state a position, laying the cards down in public: extremely low efficiency. The bed is the life you lean on together. Peeling from foot to skin is often small things dropping first: fewer replies, fewer meals, less touching; last it reaches the flesh.

Hard explaining, hard chasing, hard holding then often sits Bo in place. What fits the hexagram is wanting less, performing less, finishing the days you can still live together. Six in the fifth’s “string of fish,” used in love, is earthy: do not keep several ambiguities at once, do not let people fight for favor. One line, one order: nothing unbeneficial instead.

If you are single and draw Bo, it is not a fate of no companion. People you force-meet in this stretch mostly come with consumption. Pause socializing a little; keep the fruit in life that can still be left: the body, work, friends still there. Smashing Bo with more dates is like jumping again on a bed already shedding crumbs.

Workplace people and Bo: be careful of being edged out layer by layer. Information not coming, meetings not calling you, credit drawn away. Less stating a position, less passing words, finish your proper work. Toward those above, do not fight for glory now; toward those below, do not draw more now. The Xiang wants you to thicken below and ease the house. If you yourself are the below being drawn, first protect what you can protect, then consider whether to go. Going should also look like leaving a ripe fruit, not tearing the house down in one anger.

The bed peeled from foot to skin; do not eat that last fruit

In class I teach Bo’s lines as a bed. Not poetry. This hexagram’s own words.

Initial six: 剝床以足，蔑貞凶. Peel the bed from the foot. You have not felt pain; the structure has already moved. Slighting correctness: taking the correct path you should hold as light. Draw this line: unluck is not in a great collapse. It is in you saying “it is not that serious.” Check the bottom: books, the body, the base, contracts.

Six in the second: 剝床以辨. 辨 is the bed’s divide; some say the board, some say to the knee. Anyway higher than the foot; peeling has entered a layer. Still slighting the correctness you should hold: still unlucky. This line appears, the problem is already visible: a process broken, people starting to leave, love starting to go cold. Still treat it as small, and it will walk toward the skin.

Six in the fourth: 剝床以膚，凶. It has touched the flesh. Draw this line: do not comfort yourself “I can still grind.” Post, principal, the relationship: already hurt to the person. Stop the bleeding first. Do not add stakes to prove.

Six in the fifth: 貫魚，以宮人寵，無不利. Yin lines strung like a string of fish. Palace people receive favor, but there is order. Draw this line: not telling you to fight for favor. Telling the eroding side to line up, be constrained. If the principal can settle those below, put the order right: peeling to here can still not fail. In people: do not let small circles bite each other; give a clear line.

Upper nine: 碩果不食，君子得輿，小人剝廬. The last fruit on the tree, do not eat. Eat it and there is no seed; later there is nothing to return. The superior person leaves it; people will come to carry you, get a carriage. Small people peel even that last bit; even the hut is gone, peel the hut. Draw the upper nine: what is often asked is, do you still want to stake the last principal, last person, last dignity. Leave it, then you can receive Fu later.

So when people say “I drew Bo, luck is very bad,” ask again: peeled to which layer? Foot, divide, skin, or only a ripe fruit left? Layer different, practice different.

In class I only teach Bo three things

First, admit it is peeling; do not use ornament. Bi (Grace) used up, then Bo. Still dressing, still posting to keep dignity: the bed-leg drops faster.

Second, not beneficial to go forth is strategy, not lying flat. What you can do is thicken below, hold the root, put the order right. What you cannot do is a distant campaign, a turnaround show, adding leverage.

Third, leave the ripe fruit. Everyone who draws Bo, I have them write “the one fruit I absolutely will not eat this time”: principal, credit, the body, a child, the person who can still speak. Write it out and the hexagram was not wasted.

After peeling is not death. The next hexagram is Fu, one yang coming back. Fu is left for people who still have fruit. Peel the hut too, and when yang returns you cannot carry it.

To see how one yang comes back, read I Ching Fu Meaning | Hexagram 24 How to Read: Return, Catching the Turn. Bo’s lower trigram is Kun; carrying and lost first then gained are useful: I Ching Kun Meaning | Hexagram 2 How to Read: Receptive Earth, Lost First Then Gained. Closedness and peeling both very much not suited to forcing through; compare I Ching Pi Meaning | Hexagram 12 How to Read: Getting Through Standstill. Pi is qi not meeting; Bo is the below being emptied. Two kinds of hardness. Do not mix them.

I Ching Bo FAQ

Does drawing Bo mean this will definitely fail, definitely break up?

Not necessarily. Bo is structure dropping, not a verdict. Many things in Bo have to slim, stop a loss, and only grow again at Fu. If you hard-make a Bo year into an expansion year, a proposal year, a showdown year, the failure rate goes up.

Not beneficial to go forth: do nothing at all?

Not do nothing. Do not attack outward, do not open a new game. Repairing the bed-leg, settling those below, leaving the ripe fruit: all are doing. Hear “not beneficial to go forth” as lying flat, and the bed will still be peeled complete.

Work is not going well, I drew Bo. Should I resign?

You can start looking at the next step. Do not quit naked in anger. Outside Bo is also not thick; charging out may only be swapping a thinner bed. First have a next place, first have savings, first leave credit, then go. When you go, take the ripe fruit. Do not take the network, reputation, body apart together.

Original Bo, changing Fu: has it already turned?

The direction is turning; the process still has to pass Bo. Like winter reporting the start of spring, the ground still frozen. You can prepare seed. Need not sow today as if it were spring. Leave the ripe fruit; then Fu is useful.

For an online hexagram, try free love divination and match both birthdays with this reading.