小過
xiǎo guò

62. Preponderance of the Small

䷽
Above
震 zhèn
The Arousing, Thunder
Below
艮 gèn
Keeping Still, Mountain

While in the hexa­gram Ta Kuo, PRE­PON­DER­ANCE OF THE GREAT, the strong lines pre­pon­der­ate and are with­in, in­closed be­tween weak lines at the top and bot­tom, the present hexa­gram has weak lines pre­pon­der­at­ing, though here again they are on the out­side, the strong lines being with­in. This in­deed is the basis of the ex­cep­tion­al sit­u­a­tion in­di­cat­ed by the hexa­gram. When strong lines are out­side, we have the hexa­gram I, PRO­VID­ING NOUR­ISH­MENT, or Chung Fu, INNER TRUTH; nei­ther rep­re­sents an ex­cep­tion­al state. When strong el­e­ments with­in pre­pon­der­ate, they nec­es­sar­i­ly en­force their will. This cre­ates strug­gle and ex­cep­tion­al con­di­tions in gen­er­al. But in the present hexa­gram it is the weak el­e­ment that per­force must me­di­ate with the out­side world. If a man oc­cu­pies a po­si­tion of au­thor­i­ty for which he is by na­ture re­al­ly in­ad­e­quate, ex­tra­or­di­nary pru­dence is nec­es­sary.

The Judgement

Preponderance of the small. Success.
Perseverance furthers.
Small things may be done; great things should not
be done.
The flying bird brings the message:
It is not well to strive upward,
It is well to remain below.
Great good fortune.

Ex­cep­tion­al mod­esty and con­sci­en­tious­ness are sure to be re­ward­ed with suc­cess; how­ev­er, if a man is not to throw him­self away, it is im­por­tant that they should not be­come empty form and sub­servience but be com­bined al­ways with a cor­rect dig­ni­ty in per­son­al be­hav­ior. We must un­der­stand the de­mands of the time in order to find the nec­es­sary off­set for its de­fi­cien­cies and dam­ages. In any event we must not count on great suc­cess, since the req­ui­site strength is lack­ing. In this lies the im­por­tance of the mes­sage that one should not strive after lofty things but hold to lowly things.

The struc­ture of the hexa­gram gives rise to the idea that this mes­sage is brought by a bird. In Ta Kuo, PRE­PON­DER­ANCE OF THE GREAT, the four strong, heavy lines with­in, sup­port­ed only by two weak lines with­out, give the image of a sag­ging ridge­pole. Here the sup­port­ing weak lines are both out­side and pre­pon­der­ant; this gives the image of a soar­ing bird. But a bird should not try to sur­pass it­self and fly into the 6a. Hsiao Kuo / Pre­pon­der­ance of the Small sun; it should de­scend to the earth, where its nest is. In this way it gives the mes­sage con­veyed by the hexa­gram.

The Image

Thunder on the mountain:
The image of preponderance of the small.
Thus in his conduct the superior man gives preponderance to reverence.
In bereavement he gives preponderance to grief.
In his expenditures he gives preponderance to thrift.

Thun­der on the moun­tain is dif­fer­ent from thun­der on the plain. In the moun­tains, thun­der seems much near­er; out­side the moun­tains, it is less au­di­ble than the thun­der of an or­di­nary storm. Thus the su­pe­ri­or man de­rives an im­per­a­tive from this image: he must al­ways fix his eyes more close­ly and more di­rect­ly on duty than does the or­di­nary man, even though this might make his be­hav­ior seem petty to the out­side world. He is ex­cep­tion­al­ly con­sci­en­tious in his ac­tions. In be­reave­ment emo­tion means more to him than cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ness. In all his per­son­al ex­pen­di­tures he is ex­treme­ly sim­ple and un­pre­ten­tious. In com­par­i­son with the man of the mass­es, all this makes him stand out as ex­cep­tion­al. But the es­sen­tial sig­nif­i­cance of his at­ti­tude lies in the fact that in ex­ter­nal mat­ters he is on the side of the lowly.

The Lines

Six at the beginning means:
The bird meets with misfortune through flying.

A bird ought to re­main in the nest until it is fledged. If it tries to fly be­fore this, it in­vites mis­for­tune. Ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures should be re­sort­ed to only when all else fails. At first we ought to put up with tra­di­tion­al ways as long as pos­si­ble; oth­er­wise we ex­haust our­selves and our en­er­gy and still achieve noth­ing.

Six in the second place means:
She passes by her ancestor
And meets her ancestress.

Two ex­cep­tion­al sit­u­a­tions are in­stanced here. In the tem­ple of an­ces­tors, where al­ter­na­tion of gen­er­a­tions pre­vails, the grand­son stands on the same side as the grand­fa­ther. Hence his clos­est re­la­tions are with the grand­fa­ther. The present line des­ig­nates the grand­son’s wife, who dur­ing the sac­ri­fice pass­es by the an­ces­tor and goes to­ward the an­ces­tress. This un­usu­al be­hav­ior is, how­ev­er, an ex­pres­sion of her mod­esty. She ven­tures rather to ap­proach the An­ces­tress, for she feels re­lat­ed to her by their com­mon sex. Hence here de­vi­a­tion from the rule is not a mis­take. An­oth­er image is that of the of­fi­cial who, in com­pli­ance with reg­u­la­tion, first seeks an au­di­ence with his prince. If he is not suc­cess­ful in this, he does not try to force any­thing but goes about con­sci­en­tious ful­fill­ment of his duty, tak­ing his place among the other of­fi­cials. This ex­tra­or­di­nary re­straint is like­wise not a mis­take in ex­cep­tion­al times. (The rule is that every of­fi­cial should first have an au­di­ence with the prince by whom he is ap­point­ed. Here the ap­point­ment is made by the min­is­ter.)

Nine in the third place means:
If one is not extremely careful,
Somebody may come up from behind and strike him.
Misfortune.

At cer­tain times ex­tra­or­di­nary cau­tion is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary. But it is just in such life sit­u­a­tions that we find up­right and strong per­son­al­i­ties who, con­scious of being in the right, dis­dain to hold them­selves on guard, be­cause they con­sid­er it petty. In­stead, they go their way proud and un­con­cerned. But this self-con­fi­dence de­ludes them. There are dan­gers lurk­ing for which they are un­pre­pared. Yet such dan­ger is not un­avoid­able; one can es­cape it if he un­der­stands that the time de­mands that he pay es­pe­cial at­ten­tion to small and in­signif­i­cant things.

Nine in the fourth place means:
No blame. He meets him without passing by.

Hard­ness of char­ac­ter is tem­pered by yield­ing po­si­tion,1 so that no mis­takes are made. The sit­u­a­tion here calls for ex­treme cau­tion; one must make no at­tempt of one’s own ini­tia­tive to reach the de­sired end. And if one were to go on, en­deav­or­ing to force his way to the goal, he would be en­dan­gered. There­fore one must be on guard and not act but con­tin­ue in­ward­ly to per­se­vere.

Six in the fifth place means:
Dense clouds,
No rain from our western territory.
The prince shoots and hits him who is in the cave.

As a high place is pic­tured here, the image of a fly­ing bird has be­come that of fly­ing clouds. But dense as the clouds are, they race across the sky and give no rain. Sim­i­lar­ly, in ex­cep­tion­al times there may be a born ruler who is qual­i­fied to set the world in order, but who can­not achieve any­thing or con­fer bless­ing on the peo­ple be­cause he stands alone and has no helpers. In such times a man must seek out helpers with whose aid he can carry out the task. But these helpers must be mod­est­ly sought out in the re­tire­ment to which they have with­drawn. It is not their fame nor their great names but their gen­uine achieve­ments that are im­por­tant. Through such mod­esty the right man is found, and the ex­cep­tion­al task is car­ried out in spite of all dif­fi­cul­ties.

Six at the top means:
He passes him by, not meeting him.
The flying bird leaves him.
Misfortune.
This means bad luck and injury.

If one over­shoots the goal, one can­not hit it. If a bird will not come to its nest but flies high­er and high­er, it even­tu­al­ly falls into the hunter’s net. He who in times of ex­tra­or­di­nary salience of small’ things does not know how to call a halt, but rest­less­ly seeks to press on and on, draws upon him­self mis­for­tune at the hands of gods and men, be­cause he de­vi­ates from the order of na­ture.