The I Ching in 30 Pages
The Last Big Fruit
When everything is being stripped away, which seed will you keep?
Original
上九：碩果不食，君子得輿，小人剝廬。
象曰：君子得輿，民所載也；小人剝廬，終不可用也。
彖曰：……順而止之，觀象也。君子尚消息盈虛，天行也。In plain words
Top line: A great fruit, not eaten. The noble person gains a carriage; the petty person strips his own roof. The Image says: The noble person gains a carriage: the people carry him. The petty person strips his roof: in the end he is of no use. The Tuan Commentary says: … To go along with the time and stop: this comes from observing the image. The noble person honours waxing and waning, filling and emptying: this is the way heaven moves.
Key words
- 剝bōStripping away: five yin lines below, one yang left.
- 碩果shuò guǒA great, full fruit.
- 輿yúA carriage; here, being carried by the people.
Reading it step by step
Sometimes stepping back goes on until almost nothing is left. Bo (Stripping Away) has five yin lines below and a single yang line at the very top, like a tree in late autumn with all its leaves gone. In the calendar it is the ninth month; winter is coming.
First: stripping starts at the bottom. The line texts of Bo use a bed as their picture. First the legs are stripped (line one), then the frame (line two), then the mat (line four), closer and closer to the person sleeping on it. Many collapses go like this: first the foundations no one sees, and only at the end, you. The Judgment says it is not a time to set out, and the commentary says to go along with the time and stop: don't charge against the season; halt and hold steady. It adds that the noble person honours waxing and waning, filling and emptying, because this is how heaven moves. Growth and decline take turns. There's no point cursing the sky.
Stripping starts at the bottom; life is kept in the last fruit at the top.
Second: “a great fruit, not eaten.” The last big fruit on the tree is left uneaten. A fruit that isn't eaten falls, and its seed becomes next year's tree. An old saying holds that when stripping reaches its limit, return begins: at the very end, life comes back. In hard times, keep something you don't consume: a skill, your good name, one good habit you refuse to drop. The next page, Return, grows from that seed.
Third: one line, two endings. The line goes on: “The noble person gains a carriage; the petty person strips his own roof.” The noble person gets a carriage, because the people below want to carry him. The petty person tears off his own roof: push the yin up one more step, the last yang line disappears, all six lines are yin, and the petty lose their own shelter too. So when you meet this line, ask first: in this situation, which part am I playing?
A company is downsizing; people leave a team one by one. Some use the chaos to grab resources and step on others. Some quietly finish what needs finishing and look after the new people. When the storm has passed, it's the second kind people remember, and the second kind they want to carry.
The one fruit you leave is next year's whole tree.
In hard times, keep one fruit uneaten.
Today's question
Through all the recent wearing down, what have you refused to use up? What might it grow into?
Quick check
Why is “a great fruit, not eaten” read as a sign of hope?
At the end of stripping, life is kept in this one fruit; the next hexagram is Return.
III · When Things Are Hard — You can't choose the situation; you can choose the response
Notes from the Margin
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