大過 → 損
Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding → Hexagram 41: Decrease
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 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 3
九三 棟橈。凶。
Nine in the third place means: The ridgepole sags to the breaking point. Misfortune.
Line 4
九四 棟隆。吉。有它吝。
Nine in the fourth place means: The ridgepole is braced. Good fortune. If there are ulterior motives, it is humiliating.
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
過時歷月，役夫顦顇。處子嘆室，思我伯叔。
Months pass, time stretches on; the laborer is worn and wasted. The maiden sighs within her room; she longs for her husband and uncle.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake over wind diminishes into mountain above lake — Decrease, where the lower is reduced to benefit the upper. Months pass beyond their term; the conscript laborer grows gaunt and haggard. An unmarried woman sighs in her chamber, longing for her uncles and brothers. The verse pairs two kinds of diminishment: the soldier wasting away on endless campaign, and the woman wasting her youth waiting for family who will not return. Both suffer the loss of time — the cruelest form of decrease. From Great Exceeding to Decrease, the overburdened structure extracts its toll from those beneath it. The mountain draws substance from the lake below, and here that extraction is felt as the slow draining of vitality from those who serve and those who wait.
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