節 → 大過
Hexagram 60: Limitation → Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4).
Line 1
初九 不出戶庭。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: Not going out of the door and the courtyard Is without blame.
Line 3
六三 不節若。則嗟若。无咎。
Six in the third place means: He who knows no limitation Will have cause to lament. No blame.
Line 4
六四 安節亨。
Six in the fourth place means: Contented limitation. Success.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
鳥飛无羽，雞鬭折距。徒自長嗟，誰肯為侶？
A bird tries to fly without feathers; fighting cocks break their spurs. One can only sigh in vain; who would be willing to keep company?
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water over lake supports what floats within it, but this verse depicts creatures stripped of their essential capacities. A bird tries to fly without feathers; a rooster fights and snaps its spur. Long sighs accomplish nothing — who would keep company with such a diminished creature? The imagery is of fundamental unfitness: the instruments of survival have been broken or removed, leaving only futile lamentation. From Limitation to Great Exceeding, the transformation amplifies the structural failure. The lake overwhelms the trees, the ridgepole sags beyond recovery. What began as mere limitation — a bird that cannot fly — escalates into catastrophic overload. Great Exceeding's sagging beam mirrors the broken spur: too much weight on too fragile a structure. The verse warns that ignoring one's limitations leads not to gradual decline but to sudden, irreversible collapse.
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