Upper trigram
☱
Lake (Dui) above
Joy and openness.
FamilyYoungest daughter
ElementMetal
Hexagram 28 of 64
I Ching hexagram 28 ☱☴ Great Exceeding
I Ching hexagram 28, Great Exceeding, is lake above, wind below. In brief: a load too heavy for the structure. Counting from the bottom, its solid lines sit in places 2, 3, 4 and 5 and its broken lines in 1 and 6.
- Lines, bottom up
- ⚋⚊⚊⚊⚊⚋ 011110 · 1 = solid
- Trigrams
- Lake over Wind Dui ☱ / Xun ☴
- Every line changed
- № 27 Nourishment
- In Legge, 1882
- p. 116 Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16
Legge, The Yî King, 1882.
Lower trigram
☴
Wind (Xun) below
Gentle penetration.
FamilyEldest daughter
ElementWood
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What the text says, in plain terms
The Judgement and the Image of hexagram 28
The Judgement
Great excess: the central beam is overloaded and bending. The situation cannot stay as it is, and a decisive move is needed before it breaks.
The Image
A lake rising over the trees. The lesson is to stand alone without fear when necessary, and to withdraw without regret if the world will not listen.
A summary of meaning written for this site, not a translation — James Legge’s 1882 translation of the full text follows below. How the Judgement and the Image are read, and which translations to use →
Primary source
Hexagram 28 in James Legge’s translation
“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 trigram representing) trees hidden beneath that for the waters of a marsh forms Tâ Kwo. The superior man, in accordance with this, stands up alone and has no fear, and keeps retired from the world without regret.”
The lines
- Line 1 · bottom The first line, divided, shows one placing mats of the white mâo grass under things set on the ground. There will be no error.
- Line 2 The second line, undivided, shows a decayed willow producing shoots, or an old husband in possession of his young wife. There will be advantage in every way.
- Line 3 The third line, undivided, shows a beam that is weak. There will be evil.
- Line 4 The fourth line, undivided, shows a beam curving upwards. There will be good fortune. If (the subject of it) looks for other (help but that of line one), there will be cause for regret.
- Line 5 The fifth line, undivided, shows a decayed willow producing flowers, or an old wife in possession of her young husband. There will be occasion neither for blame nor for praise.
- Line 6 · top The topmost line, divided, shows its subject with extraordinary (boldness) wading through a stream, till the water hides the crown of his head. There will be evil, but no ground for blame.
James Legge, trans., The Yî King, The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1882), p. 116 — read the original text.
Words in parentheses are Legge’s own: in his preface he explains that they supply what the original writer left unsaid. “Undivided” and “divided” are his terms for yang and yin lines, counted from the bottom. The Image comes from the second appendix of the book, the Treatise on the Symbolism.
Great Exceeding for a decision
The pressure is too great to ignore. Act decisively and without delay, but gently enough not to snap what is already strained.
I Ching 28 in love and relationships
Too much weight on one person or one issue. Something has to change for the relationship to hold.
Hexagram 28 at work
Overload, overextension or a structure near breaking point. Redistribute the load or make the bold change now.
The six lines of hexagram 28
Read from the bottom up. This figure runs yin yang yang yang yang yin — what each position means.
4 yang and 2 yin lines. Three of the six stand in their proper place, and the pairs 1–4 and 3–6 answer.
What the two trigrams do to each other
Inner and outer
Wind below — gentle penetration — is the private, inner side of hexagram 28.
Lake above — joy and openness — is the world that side meets.
The five-element relation
Metal above controls Wood below. Circumstance restrains the inner position — pressure comes from the situation, not from within.
Read as a family
The youngest daughter sits above and the eldest daughter below. Two sisters, the younger one on top — siblings rather than parent and child, with the junior one taking the lead.
Calculated from the lines
Hexagrams connected to hexagram 28
Nuclear hexagram
1 · The Creative
What is happening beneath the surface.
Lines 2–4 give Qian (Heaven) as the lower trigram, lines 3–5 give Qian (Heaven) as the upper.
Opposite hexagram
27 · Nourishment
The situation turned inside out.
Change all six lines and Lake over Wind becomes Mountain over Thunder.
Inverse hexagram
Symmetrical
Hexagram 28 reads the same upside down: Lake over Wind, turned over, is still Lake over Wind. Only eight of the sixty-four do.
None of these are assigned by an author — each follows from the arrangement of lines.
The image
Lake above, Wind below.
Lake over Wind: joy and openness meeting gentle penetration.
Sources
Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “I Ching Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding.” Accessed October 27, 2026. https://astrohot.com/i-ching/hexagram/28/
For Wikipedia
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