Hexagram 28: Da Guo

Lake over Wind · 泽风大过 · Tendency: Inauspicious

Structure

• Number: 28 (King Wen sequence)
• Symbol: ䷛
• Upper trigram: Dui (Lake)
• Lower trigram: Xun (Wind)
• Lines: yin yang yang yang yang yin (bottom to top)

The statement

栋挠，利有攸往，亨。

——《周易》

What this hexagram indicates

This hexagram indicates excessive pressure and structural imbalance, beyond normal endurance. It is suitable to address unusual problems with extraordinary measures while reducing the burden. Do not continue to tough it out, and do not let a few critical points bear all the pressure.

A Buddhist reading

Daguo (Great Exceeding) is the moment when the load is too heavy and the ridgepole begins to bend. Ouyi Zhixu treats it as the point in practice where ignorance is about to break, so skillful handling matters most. One measure runs through his comments: strength and yielding must balance, and leaning too far either way is failure. Wisdom driven hard with no stillness to hold it bears no fruit, while deep stillness with no wisdom eventually stalls at the summit and slips back. Standing alone without fear and withdrawing without gloom is possible, he says, only for someone with real grounding and long cultivation, the sort who holds like a rock in midstream. The bottom line, laying white grass beneath the offering, keeps rank and wealth from weighing on the mind.

After Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655), whose Chan commentary on the Changes reads each hexagram as a stage of practice.

The statement is quoted from the Book of Changes, which is in the public domain. The English reading on this page was prepared for this library.

Related hexagrams

• Previous / Opposite: Hexagram 27: Yievery line changed to its opposite
• Next: Hexagram 29: Kan
• Nuclear: Hexagram 1: Qianlines two to four below, three to five above

Related

• Liu Yao Divination ChartLiu Yao casts a hexagram about one specific matter and reads its structure. Unlike BaZi or Zi Wei, which describe a person, Liu Yao describes how a situation stands at a particular moment. This page walks through the full process from casting to attribution.
• Mei Hua Yi Shu CalculatorMei Hua Yi Shu is traditionally attributed to Shao Yong. What sets it apart is how freely it casts: a time, a spoken number, a direction or something noticed in passing will all serve. It attaches no stems and no relatives, reading the trigrams directly. This page covers casting through to the subject and object.