大過 → 噬嗑
Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding → Hexagram 21: Biting Through
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6).
Line 1
初六 藉用白茅。无咎。
Six at the beginning means: To spread white rushes underneath. No blame.
Line 2
九二 枯楊生稊。老夫得其女妻。无不利。
Nine in the second place means: A dry poplar sprouts at the root. An older man takes a young wife. Everything furthers.
Line 3
九三 棟橈。凶。
Nine in the third place means: The ridgepole sags to the breaking point. Misfortune.
Line 5
九五 枯楊生華。老婦得其士夫。无咎无譽。
Nine in the fifth place means: A withered poplar puts forth flowers. An older woman takes a husband. No blame. No praise.
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
牧羊稻園，聞虎喧讙。危懼喘息，終無禍患。
Herding sheep in the rice garden; the tiger’s roar is heard. Fearful, gasping for breath; in the end there is no calamity.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake over wind meets fire above thunder — Biting Through, the hexagram of decisive judgment. A shepherd tends his flock in the rice paddies when he hears a tiger's roar and commotion. Fear seizes him; he pants and trembles. Yet in the end no disaster befalls. The scene is visceral: a vulnerable man with vulnerable animals, suddenly aware of a predator nearby. The terror is real but the threat passes. Biting Through's image — lightning and thunder together — suggests that swift, decisive clarity resolves what seems terrifying. From Great Exceeding to Biting Through, the overburdened beam gives way to the sharp crack of judgment. The tiger's roar is the crisis that demands response, but clear perception reveals that the danger, though loud, does not materialize into actual harm.
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