大過 → 乾
Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding → Hexagram 1: The Creative
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 6).
Line 1
初六 藉用白茅。无咎。
Six at the beginning means: To spread white rushes underneath. No blame.
Line 6
上六 過涉滅頂。凶。无咎。
Six at the top means: One must go through the water. It goes over one's head. Misfortune. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
日在北陸，陰蔽陽目。萬物空虛，不見長育。
The sun dwells in the northern wastes; yin veils yang’s eye. The myriad things stand hollow and empty; no growth or nurture is seen.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake over wind, the ridgepole bowing under excess — Great Exceeding strains toward the pure dynamism of the Creative. The sun lodges in the northern quarter, the season of deepest yin, where darkness veils the eye of yang. All things stand hollow; nothing grows or thrives. Winter solstice astronomy underlies the image: when the sun reaches its lowest declination, generative power withdraws entirely. Yet the target is Heaven doubled, the self-renewing engine of the cosmos. From Great Exceeding to the Creative, the verse captures the nadir before renewal — the moment when excess weight has crushed all vitality, and only heaven's inexhaustible initiative can restart the cycle. The bleakness is not permanent; it is the darkness that precedes the dragon's first stirring.
The Six Lines app includes all 4,096 Yilin verses, each with original ink brush artwork and full commentary. Download on the App Store