既濟 → 大過
Hexagram 63: After Completion → Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4).
Line 1
初九 曳其輪。濡其尾。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: He breaks his wheels. He gets his tail in the water. No blame.
Line 2
六二 婦喪其茀。勿逐。七日得。
Six in the second place means: The woman loses the curtain of her carriage. Do not run after it; On the seventh day you will get it.
Line 4
六四 繻有衣袽。終日戒。
Six in the fourth place means: The finest clothes turn to rags. Be careful all day long.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
言笑未畢，憂來暴卒。身加搤檻，囚繫縛束。
Laughter and words not yet finished when worry arrives suddenly. The body placed in stocks and bars, imprisoned and bound tight.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water sits above fire, and laughter has not yet finished when calamity strikes without warning. One is seized, shackled, and bound — imprisoned in an instant. The verse is brutally abrupt: mid-sentence joy becomes incarceration, with no transition and no cause given. The speed of the reversal is the point. From After Completion to Great Exceeding, fire-and-water balance collapses into the lake submerging the trees — an extraordinary burden that overwhelms normal structures. Great Exceeding's ridgepole sags under impossible weight. The completed state, at its most relaxed and celebratory, proves most vulnerable to sudden catastrophe. The very completeness bred complacency, and the blow falls precisely where no one was watching.
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