Six Doors · No. 62

第62卦小过 Xiǎo Guò · Small Exceeding

Essence: Exceed only in small things; stay low and land soon.

Judgment

Conditions right now support small undertakings, not grand ones. In small matters it even pays to overdo it—be a shade too respectful, too frugal, too careful. Like a bird's cry, which carries farther downward than up: keeping low serves you better than climbing.

Sixty-four hexagrams, six doors each

Trigrams

Upper

震 Thunder

thunder

Lower

艮 Mountain

mountain

III

The lines

Line 1Taking flight before the wings are ready invites a misfortune nothing can remedy.
Line 2Passing the grandfather to meet the grandmother, stopping short of the prince to deal with his minister—settling for the fitting level is exactly right.
Line 3Confident that nothing threatens and so taking no precautions, you leave the opening through which the blow will come.
Line 4You meet the situation without overshooting it; pressing further would be perilous, so stay watchful and do not lock yourself into one course.
Line 5Dense clouds hang without releasing rain—go yourself and draw out the capable helper hidden in obscurity, as the prince shoots his quarry in the cave.
Line 6Flying on past the very point you were meant to meet, higher and higher like the bird that overshoots—such overreach ends in calamity.

All the doors

Every single-step transition available from where you stand.

Inverse (綜) · Opposite (錯)

Inverse (綜)

Opposite (錯)

Written on this

Hexagram 62, Xiǎo Guò (Small Exceeding): Fly Low, Land Soon

What Hexagram 62, Xiǎo Guò (Small Exceeding), asks: attempt only small things, overdo them a shade, keep low like a bird's cry, and how to read it when you cast it.

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