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大畜
Hexagram 26 · Dà Chù

Great Taming

大畜 · dà chù
Stored strength; hold power with patience.
Gèn · Mountain
above
Qián · Heaven
below

Core Meaning

The Judgment: The Taming Power of the Great: steadfastness rewards. Not eating at one's own table — taking one's gifts into public service — brings good fortune. It rewards one to cross the great water.
The Image: Heaven held within the mountain. So the wise person studies the words and deeds of the past, and so strengthens character.

Heaven held within the mountain: enormous power, deliberately stored. Dà Chù is the taming of the great — strength accumulated under discipline until it becomes character, the way a mountain holds a sky.

Its counsel favors the daily practice: studying the words and deeds of the past, renewing virtue like chariot drills. Restraint here is not suppression but charging — the halted wagon, the young bull's headboard. Power so gathered eventually opens the very way of heaven.

Great Taming in Your Question

Love & Relationships

Dà Chù speaks of strong feeling held with discipline — passion given structure rather than free rein. Restraint here is not coldness: it is the containment that lets intensity deepen instead of scattering. Its gentlest craft is the fourth line's — meeting impulses early and kindly, before they harden into horns.

Career & Money

Professionally, this is the accumulation phase: building skill, capital, and credibility under deliberate restraint. Daily practice is its explicit method — study the masters, drill the craft. When blocked, treat the removed axle as charging time. Great power tamed becomes public responsibility: not eating at home, but serving at large.

Personal Growth

Inwardly, Dà Chù is character-building in the literal sense: strength converted into structure through daily, unglamorous discipline. Its sequencing is wise — redirect drives at the source rather than battling their expressions, restrain the wildness while it is young. The self so cultivated, the final line promises, finds the road suddenly open.

The Six Lines

A line speaks only when it is a changing line in your own casting.

Line 1
Danger stands directly ahead. It rewards one to stop and gather strength.
Line 2
The axle is removed from the wagon: halted by force of circumstance. Use the standstill to prepare.
Line 3
A fine horse following another at full pace. Stay aware of danger; practice the craft and the defense daily. Then it rewards one to have a goal.
Line 4
The headboard placed on the young bull before its horns grow: restraining wildness before it hardens. Great good fortune.
Line 5
The boar's tusk blunted at the source: redirect the drive itself rather than fight its expression. Good fortune.
Line 6
The way of heaven opens wide and the long restraint bears fruit. Success.

Related Hexagrams

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