損 → 小過
Hexagram 41: Decrease → Hexagram 62: Small Exceeding
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 2).
Line 2
九二 利貞。征凶。弗損益之。
Nine in the second place means: Perseverance furthers. To undertake something brings misfortune. Without decreasing oneself, One is able to bring increase to others.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
涸旱不雨,澤竭无流。魚鱉乾口,皇天不憂。
Parched drought without rain; the marshes dry, no water flows. Fish and turtles gasp with parched mouths; august Heaven shows no concern.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Mountain above lake transforms into thunder above mountain — Small Exceeding, where the small bird flies too high and loses its way. Drought grips the land without rain; the marsh dries up and streams cease to flow. Fish and turtles gasp with parched mouths, yet heaven shows no concern. The verse describes ecological catastrophe with theological silence: the creatures suffer, and the sky offers nothing. From Decrease to Small Exceeding, the lake evaporates into thunder that rumbles above the mountain without releasing rain — sound without substance, excess without effect. Small Exceeding warns against overreach in small matters; here even the small is denied. Decrease has emptied the reservoir, and the thunder's empty promise only mocks the drought below. Heaven's indifference is the final cruelty: the pattern decreases, and no one intervenes.
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