Hexagram 62: Small Excess

小過 (Xiǎo Guò)

Minor transgressions and the need for careful attention to details.

Overview

The sign marks a time when new opportunities and unexpected obstacles come together. This sign will tell you how best to keep out of trouble and use those opportunities well.

In the past you needed a goal that could guide you forward, toward improving yourself and expressing yourself. Traps and difficulties were waiting for you on the way, and you may have made mistakes, because you did not have enough experience to get around them. Even so, you kept moving forward with the right goal in mind.

That goal was not invented out of nothing. It grew out of your own thinking and your earlier experience. That is why your first steps were firm enough to keep you from losing your way.

But there is a condition. Until you correct the mistakes you made earlier, moving forward is dangerous. Trying to reach new results now will do more harm than good. Do not aim for the top yet. Your place is at the foot of the mountain.

People around you

Start by putting your relationships with colleagues and friends in order. This is the area where you make many mistakes. Do not be alarmed, but you do need to repair what has been damaged.

You are unlikely to build a warm relationship at once with the people who interest you. Take your time. You will get further only step by step.

Work and rest

It is the same at work. Do not take on tasks that need a huge amount of effort and energy. You are not ready for serious undertakings. Go back to what was left unfinished or done badly. That will teach you self-discipline and will do you a lot of good.

Think about your rest in advance. Do not let things drift. Plan ahead, and later you will thank yourself for it.

Your wish

If you do not ask fate for great gifts, your wish will come true. But do not rely on fate alone. Make an effort, and you will get what you want sooner.

This Overview is one traditional reading of the figure, offered as a prompt for reflection and perspective rather than a prediction of a fixed future. Where this material comes from.

New to the sequence? See how lines, trigrams and changing lines work, or cast your own reading with the three-coin method.

Structure

Read from the bottom upward, hexagram 62 is Thunder over Mountain. Its two inner, or nuclear, trigrams are Lake over Wind/Wood. What the eight trigrams mean.

Upper trigram (lines 4–6): Zhèn · Thunder Arousing and moving
Lower trigram (lines 1–3): Gèn · Mountain Still and stopping
Upper nuclear (lines 3–5): Duì · Lake Joyous and open
Lower nuclear (lines 2–4): Xùn · Wind/Wood Gentle and penetrating