Meaning
Four whole lines crowded into the middle, one broken line at each end: the figure is a heavy beam on weak supports. The name 大過 means great excess, too much of what is great, and the trigrams give the same picture in nature, a lake risen above the trees until they stand under water. The Judgment names the sagging ridgepole and, against expectation, allows movement in any direction and promises success.
The Image draws an austere lesson from the drowned wood: the superior man stands alone without fear and withdraws from the world without regret, if that is what the time asks. In our own reading, 大過 describes a load the ordinary order cannot carry, a time that calls for something out of the ordinary and then a return to proportion. It is the opposite of hexagram 27, the mouth, every line flipped.
The lines
The first line places "mats of the white mâo grass", in Legge's words, under what it sets down, care taken at the weak end. The second and fifth are a pair of old willows: one puts out new shoots, an old man with a young wife, and has advantage; the other puts out flowers, an old woman with a young husband, and earns neither blame nor praise. The third is the beam that sags, and the fourth the beam that holds and curves upward. The top line wades into the stream until the water covers its head, a picture of boldness beyond measure, marked evil and yet not blamed.
Within 大過 lies 乾, hexagram 1; its pair and opposite is 頤, hexagram 27.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 大過 when the year, month and day leave 2 on eight, which puts 兌 lake above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 5, which puts 巽 wind below. Which line moves depends on what the whole total leaves on six, and each line turns the figure into a different hexagram:
- Line 1 (初六) moving: becomes 43 夬 Guài, Breakthrough
- Line 2 (九二) moving: becomes 31 咸 Xián, Mutual Influence
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 47 困 Kùn, Confinement
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 48 井 Jǐng, The Well
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 32 恆 Héng, Constancy
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 44 姤 Gòu, Encounter
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 1 乾 Qián, Heaven's Strength. Everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour has the same cast, so the figure describes a moment, not a person.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Trigram virtues (Shuogua, chapter 7)
- 巽 entering, pervading below; 兌 pleased, open above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- eldest daughter below, youngest daughter above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- thighs and fowl below; mouth and sheep above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Wood below, Metal above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down it is itself; every line flipped: 27 頤 Yí, Nourishment sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 28, from 212° to 217.625° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Great Excess: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 大過 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Tâ Kwo suggests to us a beam that is weak. There will be advantage in moving (under its conditions) in any direction whatever; there will be success.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Trees hidden beneath the waters of a marsh; the superior man stands alone without fear and withdraws from the world without regret.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 兌 above when the year, month and day leave 2 on eight, 巽 below when the same total with the hour leaves 5.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 28 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- The lake rising over the trees: a beam that sags under too much weight; something out of the ordinary is called for, done alone and without fear, and then proportion again.
Claims about it
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Gate 28 of Human Design, at 212° to 217.625° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 28.
falseWhat the record shows: The wheel is Shao Yong's circle rotated by Ra Uru Hu in 1987 to 1989 so that hexagram 41 starts at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we found puts the hexagrams on degrees of the zodiac.
-
Being born under 大過 Dà Guò fixes a person's character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A modern reading with no source in the tradition. The Zhouyi has no birth hexagram; the cast reads a figure, not a person, and everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour shares it.
