Libo
Try Libo

Products

Get started

Hexagram 62: Xiao Guo

Thunder over Mountain · 雷山小过 · Tendency: Inauspicious

Structure

The statement

亨。利贞。可小事，不可大事。飞鸟遗之音，不宜上，宜下，大吉。

——《周易》

What this hexagram indicates

This hexagram suggests that small matters can be handled with more care, while major undertakings should not be rushed. It is suitable to be more cautious, frugal, and thorough in details. Do not aim for instant success, nor amplify small deviations into big actions. Walking steadily on low ground is more auspicious.

A Buddhist reading

To exceed slightly without losing correctness is how Zhixu reads Xiaoguo (Small Exceeding). Excess of respect, of grief, of frugality are corrective overshoots meant to repair a lack and bring things back to level ground. Hold to correctness and the small excess becomes no fault at all; lose it and the small excess ripens into a great one. The bird leaves its call better heard from below, which he takes as hearing where one has gone wrong and mending it at once. The fourth line repays attention: it is the sense of falling short that keeps a person examining himself, as Yao and Shun still counted themselves wanting and Qu Boyu wished to lessen his faults and could not.

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

Related