Six Doors · No. 28

第28卦大过 Dà Guò · Great Excess

Essence: The beam bends under load; act boldly, stand alone.

Judgment

The ridgepole is bending under structural overload—holding the current configuration is itself the risk. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary moves: transfer the load, or carry it alone if you must. The temper this asks for: standing firm when no one agrees with you, and withdrawing from everything without bitterness.

Sixty-four hexagrams, six doors each

Trigrams

Upper

兑 Lake

lake

Lower

巽 Wind

wind

III

The lines

Line 1Laying white rushes beneath the burden: at the start of something this heavy, no care is excessive.
Line 2The withered poplar sprouts, the old man takes a young wife—an unlikely pairing that, in exceptional times, actually bears life.
Line 3The beam is sagging and you shore it up with sheer stubbornness, refusing all counsel—collapse follows.
Line 4The ridgepole is braced and holds—good work, unless hidden motives ride on the rescue, in which case the shame surfaces later.
Line 5The withered poplar flowers—a display without fruit; the mismatch harms no one and builds nothing.
Line 6Wading in over your head and going under—disastrous, yet blameless: some causes are worth drowning for.

All the doors

Every single-step transition available from where you stand.

Inverse (綜) · Opposite (錯)

Inverse (綜)

Opposite (錯)

Written on this

Hexagram 28, Dà Guò (Great Excess): When Too Much Rests on Too Little

Hexagram 28, Dà Guò, Great Excess: the overloaded ridgepole, the withered poplar's two pairings, and how to read its six lines when you cast it.

5 min read