大過 → 晉
Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding → Hexagram 35: Progress
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 5, 6).
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
子畏於匡，厄困陳蔡。明德不危，竟自免害。
The Master was threatened at Kuang; beset and stranded in Chen and Cai. Bright virtue is not imperiled; in the end he escapes harm by himself.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake over wind brightens into fire above earth — Progress, light rising from the ground. Confucius was besieged at Kuang and suffered hardship between Chen and Cai. Yet his luminous virtue kept him from true peril, and in the end he escaped unharmed. The verse pairs the two most famous dangers of Confucius's wandering years: at Kuang, the townspeople mistook him for the villain Yang Hu and surrounded him; between Chen and Cai, his provisions ran out for seven days. In both cases, the sage declared that Heaven had not yet destroyed culture, and his equanimity preserved him. From Great Exceeding to Progress, the collapsing structure gives way to the dawn — light emerging from the earth. Confucius's virtue is that rising light: however dark the passage, 'luminous virtue does not face destruction.'
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