Sometimes a plan has not suddenly become bad; tasks have simply piled up until the original supports can no longer carry them. Great Preponderance uses a bending roof beam, a withered poplar growing again, and a crossing that submerges the head to examine excess weight and extraordinary circumstances. It helps acknowledge pressure, without turning danger into a heroic story in which courage requires enduring still more.
Identifying the hexagram
Dà Guò is hexagram 28 in the traditional King Wen sequence, with the symbol ䷛. Its lower trigram is Xun ☴ and its upper trigram is Dui ☱; their traditional images are wind and lake, respectively. Count the lines from the bottom: 初六, 九二, 九三, 九四, 九五, 上六. A solid line is yang and a broken line is yin. Nine and six in the line headings identify yang and yin; they do not indicate additional lines.
The six lines are numbered from the bottom upward; the figure below displays their actual positions from top to bottom.
━━ ━━ 上六
━━━━━━ 九五
━━━━━━ 九四
━━━━━━ 九三
━━━━━━ 九二
━━ ━━ 初六
Hexagram statement
大過：棟橈，利有攸往，亨。
Editorial rendering: Great Preponderance: the roof beam bends. It is favorable to have somewhere to go; favorable progress.
Dong is a roof beam, and rao means bending. Legge reads the four central yang lines with yin above and below as a beam with insufficient support, explaining Great Preponderance as an unusually difficult situation.
The statement’s favorable language about action does not mean adding more in every overloaded situation. A contemporary question is whether you need greater strength, a reduced burden, redistributed responsibility, or even withdrawal from an unsuitable arrangement. Specific choices still depend on real evidence.
[zhouyi-28; legge1882-28]
Interpretation in the Ten Wings
The Commentary on the Judgment (Tuan zhuan) and the Commentary on the Images (Xiang zhuan) belong to the Yi zhuan, the commentaries commonly called the Ten Wings. Their interpretations are kept separate below from the hexagram and line statements, followed by applications for contemporary learning.
The Commentary on the Judgment says the root and tip are weak. The Commentary on the Images uses lake water submerging trees and discusses standing alone without fear and withdrawing from the world without distress. Self-possession in unusual circumstances thus enters the discussion.
Today, retain the aim of not losing judgment under others’ expectations. Admitting overload and negotiating change is not less responsible than continuing to endure; independence does not mean refusing every kind of help.
[zhouyi-28; hon-sep]
Six lines, from bottom to top
The quotations below are line statements; the explanations that follow are original learning commentary. Good fortune, no blame, and regret belong to ancient divinatory language and cannot be turned directly into guarantees about an individual’s future.
初六 · Give vulnerable supports extra care
藉用白茅，无咎。
Editorial rendering: White rushes are laid underneath. No blame.
Placing white rushes beneath an object is an image of care retained by Legge. At the beginning, attention falls on what supports the object, not only the object itself.
Before taking on additional work, preserve the time it requires and confirm handover conditions. Careful preparation has value; repair need not wait for an obvious mistake.
[zhouyi-28; legge1882-28]
九二 · Recognize renewed growth and the historical metaphor
枯楊生稊，老夫得其女妻，无不利。
Editorial rendering: A withered poplar puts out new shoots; an older man obtains a young wife. Nothing is unfavorable.
A withered poplar puts out shoots, paired with an ancient marriage image of an older man and a younger wife. Legge reads the possibility of renewed vitality through it.
A contemporary application asks whether an old undertaking genuinely has new support, rather than restarting from nostalgia alone. The marriage’s age and gender terms must not become standards for judging real partners or fertility.
[zhouyi-28; legge1882-28]
九三 · Once support is demonstrably insufficient, do not rely on willpower alone
棟橈，凶。
Editorial rendering: The roof beam bends. Misfortune.
The bending beam reappears; Legge reads it as a serious difficulty in bearing weight. Actual limits need to be recognized, beyond simply feeling that a task is heavy.
If one person continually carries several jobs that should be separate, redistribute them or reduce the scope. This is not a structural-safety assessment: actual abnormalities in beams or columns require appropriate professional attention.
[zhouyi-28; legge1882-28]
九四 · After restoring support, avoid adding new burdens
棟隆，吉。有它吝。
Editorial rendering: The roof beam is raised and supported. Good fortune. An additional entanglement brings cause for regret.
The raised beam contrasts with the bending beam. Legge reads it as receiving upward support while retaining the warning about something else arising. His particular account of relationships among the lines should not be turned directly into a management formula.
A contemporary association is to stabilize new arrangements after key staffing has been added, instead of immediately adding more goals. One episode of relief still needs a check for sustainability.
[zhouyi-28; legge1882-28]
九五 · Outward flowering does not necessarily mean lasting recovery
枯楊生華，老婦得其士夫，无咎无譽。
Editorial rendering: A withered poplar flowers; an older woman obtains a young husband. No blame and no praise.
The withered poplar now flowers, unlike the new shoots in the second nine. Legge preserves the distinction between a brief display and lasting capacity, while also reflecting his era’s judgments about marriage.
This article does not adopt disparagement of older women. Its contemporary use of the tree image asks only whether an appearance of liveliness has actually strengthened the supports. Observe lasting effects rather than celebrating from appearance alone.
[zhouyi-28; legge1882-28]
上六 · Willingness to take responsibility cannot make danger disappear
過涉滅頂，凶，无咎。
Editorial rendering: Crossing too far, the head is submerged. Misfortune, yet no blame.
A crossing goes beyond its limits until the head is submerged; misfortune stands alongside no blame. Legge preserves the difference between a dangerous outcome and an absence of assigned fault. No blame cannot be translated as safe action.
A contemporary reading acknowledges that understandable intentions and unbearable consequences can coexist. This sentence must not urge life-threatening risks, self-sacrifice, or proving responsibility through endurance. Real danger calls first for real protection.
[zhouyi-28; legge1882-28]
Reducing an overloaded volunteer arrangement to a workable scope
Original contemporary scenario
The following contemporary scenario was created for learning.
A volunteer originally coordinated one monthly event, then kept accepting extra requests until registration, publicity, and cleanup all fell to him. He finally lists the actual tasks and sees that the problem is not insufficient effort at time management: the workload exceeds the available time.
The group removes activities, redistributes work, and agrees to check resources before accepting new tasks. Some worry this makes them seem less committed, but he continues explaining with facts why the old arrangement cannot last.
A few weeks later, the group checks whether the new division of work really helps. Great Preponderance here supports acknowledging and changing the relationship between load and capacity, not finding praise for prolonged overextension.
Common misreadings
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Great Preponderance does not predict accidents, marriage, or fertility outcomes. Ancient tree and marriage metaphors need to be clearly distinguished; they cannot be used to judge real people.
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Beams and river crossings are not engineering or outdoor-safety instructions. This article must never turn “no blame” into permission to disregard the safety of life.
Three practices
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Break a heavy burden into specific tasks and compare the time and support required with what is actually available.
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Consider reducing the load, adding support, and changing the method; check which option would genuinely improve capacity.
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Write down one ground for stopping further additions and explain it to those concerned.
Related reading
Great Accumulation (hexagram-26)
Great Accumulation develops the ability to bear responsibility; Great Preponderance checks whether the burden has exceeded its supports. Even careful preparation does not create an unlimited capacity to take on more.
Closing question
When reading Great Preponderance, ask: is my willpower what needs changing, or has the arrangement itself become unreasonable?
Sources
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legge1882-28: The Yî King — Hexagram 28, chapter XXVIII, judgement, six lines and notes
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unicode-hexagrams: Yijing Hexagram Symbols — U+4DC0–U+4DFF
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legge-scan-rights: Sacred Books of the East volume16 scan metadata
Classical quotations retain the Chinese source’s character forms and modern punctuation. The commentary is translated from original Simplified Chinese learning prose. The historical English source and received Chinese text are used together, and interpretations by later translators are attributed in the article. This article is not a basis for medical, investment, or other professional decisions.