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Home · The 64 Hexagrams · Hexagram 28
大過
Hexagram 28 · Dà Guò

Great Exceeding

大過 · dà guò
The beam bends; extraordinary times need care.
Duì · Lake
above
Xùn · Wind
below

Core Meaning

The Judgment: The Great Exceeding: the ridgepole sags toward breaking. It rewards one to have somewhere to go. Success.
The Image: The lake rises over the treetops. So the wise person, when standing alone, is unafraid, and can renounce the world without sorrow.

The lake risen over the treetops; the ridgepole sagging toward its breaking point: Dà Guò is the great exceeding — a situation carrying more weight than its structure was built for.

This is the hexagram of extraordinary times, and it authorizes extraordinary measures: act, move, cross — the load must be redistributed or the beam braced, and soon. Its spirit is the lone figure standing unafraid: in exceptional moments, one may renounce the ordinary rules without sorrow.

Great Exceeding in Your Question

Love & Relationships

Dà Guò marks a relationship under exceptional strain — carrying weight beyond its ordinary structure. The counsel is urgent but not hopeless: brace the ridgepole now, through honest redistribution of the load, outside help, or a form the bond has never tried. Its old-poplar lines even honor unlikely unions; what matters is that the structure fit the actual weight.

Career & Money

Professionally, Dà Guò is the overloaded system: the team at breaking point, the commitment beyond capacity. Ordinary process will not fix a sagging beam — this hexagram licenses the exceptional move: cut scope decisively, escalate honestly, restructure. Beware bracing with ulterior motives, and beware pride that keeps piling weight on a beam already bowed.

Personal Growth

Inwardly, Dà Guò names the seasons that exceed you — grief, transitions, loads that bend the frame of who you were. Its permissions are its gift: extraordinary times excuse you from ordinary expectations; standing alone unafraid is achievement enough. The final line honors even noble overreach: some crossings claim everything and are still without blame.

The Six Lines

A line speaks only when it is a changing line in your own casting.

Line 1
Spreading white rushes beneath the offering: extreme care in an extraordinary time. No blame.
Line 2
A withered poplar sprouts from the root; an aging man takes a young wife. Unlikely renewal: everything prospers.
Line 3
The ridgepole sags to the breaking point — and still one piles on weight. Misfortune.
Line 4
The ridgepole is braced and holds: good fortune. But if the bracing serves a hidden motive, humiliation.
Line 5
A withered poplar puts out blossom; an aging woman takes a husband. A flowering without fruit: no blame, no praise.
Line 6
Wading forward until the water closes overhead: misfortune. Yet for one who gave everything for what mattered, no blame.

Related Hexagrams

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