小過 → 蠱
Hexagram 62: Small Exceeding → Hexagram 18: Work on the Decayed
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 4, 6).
Line 2
六二 過其祖。遇其妣。不及其君。遇其臣。无咎。
Six in the second place means: She passes by her ancestor And meets her ancestress. He does not reach his prince And meets the official. No blame.
Line 4
九四 无咎。弗過遇之。往厲必戒。勿用永貞。
Nine in the fourth place means: No blame. He meets him without passing by. Going brings danger. One must be on guard. Do not act. Be constantly persevering.
Line 6
上六 弗遇過之。飛鳥離之。凶。是謂災眚。
Six at the top means: He passes him by, not meeting him. The flying bird leaves him. Misfortune. This means bad luck and injury.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
戴盆望天，不見星辰。顧小失大，遁逃墻外。
Carrying a basin on one's head to gaze at heaven, seeing neither stars nor constellations; watching the small, losing the great; fleeing beyond the wall.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder rumbles above the mountain, but one wears a basin on one's head and tries to gaze at the sky — naturally, the stars are invisible. Fixated on the small, one loses sight of the great, and ultimately flees over the wall in panic. The proverb 戴盆望天 (wearing a basin while hoping to see heaven) is a classic image of self-imposed blindness: the very tool meant to carry water blocks the view upward. The escape over the wall completes the farce — having failed to see what was overhead, one now abandons what was underfoot. From Small Exceeding to Work on the Decayed, the mountain's thunder shifts to wind trapped beneath the mountain. The decay is self-inflicted: corruption begins when one's own instrument obstructs one's vision.
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