賁 → 小過
Hexagram 22: Grace → Hexagram 62: Small Exceeding
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 6).
Line 1
初九 賁其趾。舍車而徒。
Nine at the beginning means: He lends grace to his toes, leaves the carriage, and walks.
Line 4
六四 賁如皤如。白馬翰如。匪寇婚媾。
Six in the fourth place means: Grace or simplicity? A white horse comes as if on wings. He is not a robber, He will woo at the right time.
Line 6
上九 白賁。无咎。
Nine at the top means: Simple grace. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
玄黃瘣隤，行者勞罷。役夫憔悴，處子畏哀。
Heaven and earth are sickly and wan; the traveler is weary and spent. The laborers are gaunt and haggard; the young woman is filled with dread and sorrow.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire beneath the mountain reveals exhaustion across the land. Heaven and earth are bruised and battered — the phrase 'xuan huang' (玄黃) echoes the Shijing's soldiers' lament and the I-Ching's Kun hexagram (line six-three: 'the dragon battles in the wild, its blood is xuan-yellow'). Travelers are weary and spent, conscript workers haggard, and young women at home grieve in dread. From Grace to Small Exceeding, fire beneath the mountain gives way to thunder above the mountain. Small Exceeding teaches that in times of diminished resources, one should exceed in humility, in mourning, in frugality — but never in ambition. The verse's universal exhaustion is precisely the condition Small Exceeding addresses: when all are spent, only modest excess in care and restraint can carry one through.
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