Hexagram 26
The Taming Power of the Great
大畜Dà Chù
☶ Mountain above, ☰ Heaven below
Within the mountain heaven lies enclosed: tremendous power that is held and nourished, and precisely through that containment this hexagram grows into a treasury of daily practiced strength.
The JudgmentThe taming power of the great: perseverance brings reward. Not eating at home brings good fortune; it is worthwhile to cross the great water. Great strength wants to be nourished, gathered, and placed in the service of something larger than your own yard.
The ImageHeaven within the mountain: the image of the taming power of the great. Thus the noble one comes to know many words of antiquity and deeds of the past, and so tempers his character. A mountain holding heaven inside it: whoever takes in the best of the past each day builds a strength that can no longer be taken away.
InterpretationIn this sign great strength is held, tamed, and stored, like water behind a dam: an arc of tension. It appears in times of training and building up: studying, saving, getting into condition, mastering a craft, learning to bear tension without discharging it in impulses. The directions are concrete: nourish yourself daily with what has been gained before (the Image), place your powers in service beyond your own house (not eating at home), and know that all of this is leading somewhere: the great water waits. Tamed strength is not suppressed strength; it is strength held in store like heaven within the mountain, and it knows its destination.
Place in the sequenceFirst there must be innocence, then gathering can begin: this sign follows 25, Innocence, for only what is true can be amassed and held on a great scale. It forms a pair with 25 · Innocence.
Nuclear hexagram
The nuclear hexagram of The Taming Power of the Great is 54 · The Marrying Maiden: The marrying maiden: entering from the weaker position; no grand initiatives, but sensitivity and an eye on the lasting end. It is formed from the inner lines and shows the hidden core of the situation.
The six lines
These texts belong to changing lines in a reading, from the bottom up.
Nine at the beginning
There is danger:
it is worthwhile to desist. You want to move forward, but the way is blocked by something stronger than you are at this moment. Do not push through: a collision now costs what you will need later. Saving strength at the right moment is the strongest move there is, even though it feels like loss. A pause you choose yourself is strategy; a defeat you could have seen coming is waste. Hold back, and let the obstacle ripen until it can be moved.
Nine in the second place
The axles have been taken from the wagon.
The way is blocked, and you do not join the battle: you remove the axles yourself and come to a halt, out of insight rather than defeat. Accept the delay without resentment and use it: maintain the wagon, train the team, revise the route. Choose a waiting time yourself instead of lamenting it: then you are first back on the road when it opens, and better equipped than those who drove on until the wheels broke.
Nine in the third place
A good horse that follows others:
it is worthwhile, aware of danger, to practice chariot driving and armed defense daily; it is worthwhile to have a goal. The way comes clear and you may finally trot, together with those who share the same goal. Discipline counts most right now: keep practicing daily as if the obstacle still existed, and keep the reins in hand, even at full trot. Freedom after long restraint is the most dangerous moment; those who carry their training into freedom get to keep it.
Six in the fourth place
The headboard on the horns of the young bull:
sublime good fortune. Tame strength before it becomes dangerous: the board goes on the horns while they are still stubs. Any wild growth (a habit, a conflict, an expense, an urge) can be contained almost for free when caught early, and those who wait pay the top price later. This is the art of preventive taming: not waiting until the beast is full grown and then fighting, but shaping the form while everything is still soft.
Six in the fifth placeruling line
The tusk of a gelded boar:
good fortune. The boar is still armed, but the source of its ferocity has been removed: this is how you tame strength, not by fighting the tusks but by taking away the root of the wildness. In every stubborn problem, look for the drive rather than the symptom: the need beneath the habit, the fear beneath the aggression. Indirect taming looks less heroic and works ten times as well.
Nine at the topruling line
One attains the way of heaven:
success. The dam opens: everything built up, saved, and held back for months or years is released all at once and finds its course. This is the moment all that discipline served; use it grandly and without hesitation. Strength tamed this long carries far and collides with nothing: in its confinement it has found its direction. Whatever you undertake in that direction succeeds.