大過 → 井

Commentary

Lake over wind sinks into water above wind — the Well, the inexhaustible source that nourishes the community. One who harms benevolence and wounds virtue provokes heaven's anger; blessings cease. Ancestral shrines are cut down, and the guardian of the domain loses his realm. The verse is a moral indictment: when the ruler destroys the very foundations of virtue, heaven withdraws its mandate, the altars are razed, and the state collapses. The Well's image — water drawn up through wood — depends on the integrity of the mechanism. From Great Exceeding to the Well, the overburdened structure should find renewal in the deep source below. But a ruler who 'harms benevolence and wounds virtue' has poisoned the well itself. No amount of structural support can save a community whose moral source is corrupted at its origin.