Hexagram 23 is called Stripping Away.*The old character shows a knife, and a less-clear component*that might be a well winch or a bag for filtering wine, separating the wine from the dregs. As LiSe*shows, that blends into the meaning of the whole. But the knife component is very clear – in etymology and in experience.
When you receive Hexagram 23, something is coming ‘under the knife’. The traditional version of the etymology says the knife is carving, cutting away what is not required. That’s often the lived experience of the hexagram: something outworn, something no longer of use, is cut away. The difficult part is that until the knife comes down, we might have been quite attached to our plans/ideas/self-image/social position/security/relationship… etc. The ‘stripping away’ might feel something like being skinned alive.
Living through this hexagram can be excruciating – but it isn’t necessarily so. This depends on two things – scale, that I wrote about the other day, and also on the degree of attachment. That’s the message of the Image –
That isn’t an Image of pain and loss, but of kindness, generosity and peace. Mountains don’t develop neurotic attachments to ‘their’ minerals, and so the valley below is well-nourished.
Funnily enough, that mysterious ‘wine-bag’ part of the hexagram name is also a loan for three characters meaning*the place at the foot of a mountain*(see Harmen Mesker,*Cutting Through Hexagram 23). Such a place might be in the mountain’s rain-shadow, arid and deprived, but it could also be – on the other side of the mountain – particularly moist and cool. I think the Image authors were imagining a fertile, sheltered valley.
How interesting that of*all the Image texts in the book, this is the only one with no explicit human protagonist: no noble one, no ancient kings. Of course ‘heights’*implies upper social strata, but it literally only means ‘above’, the opposite of ‘below’. The human element – that part that can say ‘this is mine!‘ –*is stripped back and disappears into the landscape.
Tradition says that the mountain rests on the earth like a government rests on the people, and this hexagram portrays a bad government that has eroded its foundations, exhausted popular support and is on the verge of collapse. It needs to practise generosity, because the society’s very structure is being pulled apart. (‘Pulling apart’ is Minford‘s name for the hexagram in his Part I, ‘Book of Wisdom’.)
It’s not about propping up the status quo with a pre-election tax cut, though: this scene, the mountains above the valley, shows that erosion is a natural constant: it’s just what happens.*If we could*participate in a spirit of generosity – if we were a little more like mountains, a little less attached – Hexagram 23 might be painless.

Pairing away, or cutting out or collapse is not always such a bad thing. Sometimes we have to let go of things that no longer work for us. That can be painful initially but doesn't have to be. So much depends on how much attachment we have to the old situation. The Buddhists and the Hindi say that "attachment brings suffering." Often we do not realize that such and such a situation is actually no longer working for us.

Furthermore, everything in the universe is cyclical, including the universe itself, which expands then falls back on itself, cycles, cycles, cycles. Hexagram 55 tells us not to be saddened by these events. The entire I Ching tells us about cycles, and cycles, and cycles. We are on a sine wave. On hour we are on the top, (hexagram 55, and the Wheel of Fortune) but from there the decline is inevitable. This is natural law and we need to adapt ourselves to it. To refuse to adapt leads to suffering. To let go ultimately leads to joy. We must know where we are on the sine wave, and what comes next. (Hexagram two line one, for example. Anyway, joy and sorrow are just two sides of the same coin. (The sine wave).

Actually... in my experience, 23 can sometimes be a relief. It's been such a struggle trying to uphold/ prop up that thing that's worn out, and now it just falls anyway.

I always think of stripping an old door. The process can be quite unpleasant (paint remover or burner) but the resulting door can look wonderful. Also one has to be careful sometimes in the process - it can be quite dangerous using stripper (it stings) or you can burn the wood. Also you may find that once you have stripped the door bare, it really looked so much better painted. In which case you can repaint - with a new layer of paint.
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