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So, we’re up to Great Exceeding (dà guò), and nearing the halfway point of our glancing blow at the I Ching.
Why is this stuff on a blog about Chinese adoption?
Because it’s a cornerstone of Chinese (and Asian) culture, showing up on everything from bus stops to names of the months to national flags to music and poetry to stock reports (well, OK, I’m trusting Google on that last one).
Once you “get” this stuff, even a little, you’re in a better place to learn the language and to generally “get” the culture you’ve adopted into (and to which your child may or may not eventually feel like connecting, later in life). Besides which, it’s generally worth understanding for its own sake. Chinese proverb: Ben gu zhi rong — when the root is strong, the branches flourish. This is a strong root.
So, Great Exceeding, Preponderance of the Great, or Great Surpassing. Go go greatness!
This seems naturally linked to the other “great” hexagram, Great Accumulation, or Da Chu. That hexagram and this one are joined by Yi, hexagram 27, which was all about eating. The lesson here seems to be: you store up the stuff you need, you consume it, and then you’re ready to great things.
What’s the character mean?
The character for Da Guo (or Ta Kuo) is made of two ideograms, Alfred Huang tells us. “Da” or “great” is a dude standing up looking great, while “guo” or “exceeding” shows three footprints over a stop sign, next to a house with an overloaded roof. As the rest of the commentaries repeat, the roof is sagging under the excess weight.
What’s on the top?
The outer trigram is dui, the joyful, lazy lake.
What’s on the bottom?
The inner trigram is sun, the gentle wind, which also represents wood. Together, these two make a pretty happy-go-lucky pair — think of sailboats.
I should point out here that Da Guo (or Ta Kuo) is the last hexagram for a while that Da Liu links to a tai chi movement — in this case, turn body and strike fist to back. It looks like this – basically, like the name says, you turn around and punch behind you. The upper trigram, dui, means “lake,” but can also refer to a fist. The nuclear trigrams, both yang-filled, energetic, expanding qian, symbolize a strong turning of the body.
In tai chi, the idea of “expanding” forces is an important one — to a certain degree, all those fancy moves are about making your body expand and contract in various configurations. Not unlike a sponge. I think that’s what Da Liu’s getting at — yang expands in the middle.
What’s it from far away?
The Judgement and Image verses show, well, a house with a sagging roof and a lake “rising to consume the tree.” These aren’t really happy images, so I can’t imagine why it’s linked to “success” or “prosperous and smooth” (depending on the translation). But it is. The middle here is strong and solid, it’s just that the edges are frayed. So I suppose that’s the opportunity here: keep moving before the collapse, and you’ll be able to use that strength elsewhere. It’s a good time to move along.
Wilhelm seems to indicate this in his commentary:
It is necessary to find a way of transition as quickly as possible, and to take action. This promises success. For although the strong element is in excess, it is in the middle, that is, at the center of gravity, so that a revolution is not to be feared. Nothing is to be achieved by forcible measures. The problem must be solved by gentle penetration to the meaning of the situation (as is suggested by the attribute of the inner trigram, Sun)….
What’s it saying up close?
The Lines verses depict useful plants — grasses woven into a mat, poplar or willow sprouts (which I’m taking to mean the kinds of flexible twigs you’d weave baskets out of), and the sagging ridgepole. The final line describes water over your head — a flood that might be good for willow trees… after it subsides. Until then, it’s a bit of a mess. Too bad.
Da Liu says the third and sixth lines reflect how your body’s supposed to feel when you do the tai chi movement turn body and strike fist to back correctly — the body turns like a sagging, springy ridgepole (line three), propelling a fist that falls like rain (line six) on the head of an attacker.
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I’m using the Wilhelm/Baynes translation from the comprehensive Wengu collection or the user-friendly Eclectic Energies site, and I’m taking the character translations from Alfred Huang’s The Complete I Ching. Feel like going deeper? Check out Hong Kong’s Taoist Culture & Information Centre’s I Ching page, and the essays & reviews on Ma Xia’s Yijing Page.
