未濟 → 小過
Hexagram 64: Before Completion → Hexagram 62: Small Exceeding
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 6).
Line 2
九二 曳其輪。貞吉。
Nine in the second place means: He brakes his wheels. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 3
六三 未濟征凶。利涉大川。
Six in the third place means: Before completion, attack brings misfortune. It furthers one to cross the great water.
Line 6
上九 有孚于飲酒。无咎。濡其首。有孚失是。
Nine at the top means: There is drinking of wine In genuine confidence. No blame. But if one wets his head, He loses it, in truth.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
牧羊稻園，聞虎喧歡。懼畏悚息，終无禍患。
Herding sheep by the rice fields; hearing the tiger's joyful roar. Fearful and trembling with dread; yet in the end no harm befalls.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire above water, and a shepherd tends his flock in a paddy field when a tiger's roar erupts nearby. Terror seizes the heart, breath stops — but in the end, no harm comes. The shepherd is in the wrong terrain (paddy fields are for rice, not sheep), and the tiger is in the wrong habitat (wilderness, not farmland). Everything is out of place, which is Before Completion's signature. From Before Completion to Small Exceeding, fire-over-water transforms into thunder above the mountain. Small Exceeding counsels excessive caution in small matters — 'one may exceed in reverence, in frugality, in grief.' The shepherd who freezes in terror and survives embodies this: the small creature that crouches low when the great force passes overhead. Survival through excessive humility.
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