Upper Trigram
艮 Gèn
Mountain — Stillness
Lower Trigram
乾 Qián
Heaven — Creative
Classical Texts
The Goal
Da Chu is not hoarding. It is the containment and cultivation of great creative power until the moment of deployment is right. Mountain (Gen) above Heaven (Qian): the still, immovable mountain holds back the full creative force of heaven. This is an extraordinary structural claim — that stillness can restrain the strongest force in the I-Ching. The restraint is not suppression; it is accumulation. Pressure builds, capacity deepens, and what eventually emerges is more potent than what was originally held back. The Image names what is being accumulated, and it is not power: 天在山中，大畜；君子以多識前言往行，以畜其德 — "heaven within the mountain: the Great Accumulating. The superior person learns many sayings of antiquity and deeds of the past, and so accumulates his virtue." The reserve Da Chu builds is made of what others have already said and done. This is why the hexagram can claim that restraint increases force rather than merely delaying it: the interval is spent acquiring something the unrestrained version would never have had. The judgment says 利貞 and then gives a remarkable instruction: 不家食，吉 — "not eating at home brings good fortune." The accumulated capacity is not for private consumption. The worthy person is sustained by the public domain rather than their own cupboard, and the same judgment endorses 利涉大川, the great crossing. Accumulation is tied to responsibility: one gathers great resources precisely so they can be spent on great undertakings. Accumulation without that purpose becomes the stagnation the hexagram warns against. The line texts trace the trajectory. The first line does not act at all — 有厲，利已, "there is danger; it is favorable to desist." Restraint then becomes something more intelligent than stopping: 六四's 童牛之牿 puts the crossbar on the young bull's horns before they are dangerous, and 六五's 豶豕之牙 disarms the boar's tusk by gelding the boar rather than by fighting the tusk. The force is not opposed; it is shaped early, at the point where shaping is still cheap. At the top the restraint is gone: 何天之衢，亨 — "the highway of heaven; success." Da Chu's goal is not permanent containment but capacity developed so thoroughly that, when the restraint is released, the force moves without obstruction. The mountain does not hold heaven back forever. It holds heaven back until heaven is ready to move as heaven should.
The Judgment
Sustained orientation is supported. Not eating at home resolves well. Crossing the great river is supported. The configuration says: don't eat at home. Take your talents public. You know that person who's been 'working on themselves' for seven years? They have a beautiful home practice and zero impact. This hexagram is the eviction notice for private virtue. The world needs what you've stored up. Stop hoarding it.
The Image
Heaven within the mountain: great accumulation. The realized person accordingly studies the words and deeds of the past to cultivate character. Heaven — the biggest thing there is — contained inside a mountain. That's what accumulated power looks like from the outside: just a mountain. The instruction is to study history. Not for fun. Because every pattern you're going to face has already been faced. The person who reads history is cheating — they've seen the answers.
The Lines
Line 1
There is strain. It is better to stop. Strain. Stop. Three characters that could save you a year of your life. You feel the resistance and the instruction is the hardest thing for an ambitious person to hear: this isn't the wall you push through. This is the wall that's telling you something. The difference matters enormously.
Line 2
The carriage is stripped of its axle mounts. The wheels came off. Not metaphorically — the axle brackets are gone. You literally cannot move forward. And there's no verdict. No 'resolves well,' no 'adverse.' Just: the vehicle is disabled. Sometimes the universe doesn't want your opinion about the delay. It wants you to sit in the parking lot.
Line 3
Fine horses give chase. Difficult sustained orientation is supported. Daily practice with chariot defense. Going forward is supported. Good horses running — and the instruction is daily practice with your defenses, not just the chase. The person with the fast horse who never trains the fundamentals? We all know how that ends. The configuration supports going forward, but only after you've done the boring part. Every. Single. Day.
Line 4
The young bull's headboard. Supremely resolves well. Put the board on the bull's head before the horns grow in. That's it. That's the whole line. Supremely resolves well — the highest possible rating — for prevention. Not the dramatic intervention. Not the heroic rescue. The board on the baby bull. Foresight is worth more than courage. Always has been.
Line 5
The gelded boar's tusks. Resolves well. The tusks are still there but the force behind them is gone. Resolves well. You didn't remove the weapon — you changed the nature that drives it. There's something almost elegant about this. The boar still looks dangerous. It just isn't anymore. That's how you neutralize a real problem.
Line 6
Bearing heaven's thoroughfare. Fulfillment. The crossroads of heaven. And: fulfillment. Everything that was accumulated, restrained, stored, disciplined — it all opens. The road is as wide as the sky. This is what sustained restraint was for. Not to make you smaller. To build the road that could hold what you're carrying.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 26 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.
朝鮮之地姬伯所保宜人宜家業處子孫求事大喜
The land of Joseon, kept safe by Lord Jizi. Fit for people, fit for families; the enterprise is passed to sons and grandsons. In all undertakings, great joy.
Read full commentary ↓
Great Taming doubled upon itself — heaven stored within the mountain, undiluted and self-referencing. The land of Joseon, which the Viscount of Ji protected and preserved. Suitable for person and family alike, a legacy handed down through the generations; all undertakings bring great joy. The Viscount of Ji (Jizi), uncle of the Shang tyrant, feigned madness to survive the court's depravity. After Shang fell, he was enfeoffed at Joseon, where he established a civilized state. This is Great Taming at its purest: the sage who stored virtue within himself during a period of darkness, then carried that accumulated wisdom to a new land and built something lasting. The static hexagram shows accumulation fulfilled across generations.
中文註釋
天在山中，大畜自變。朝鮮之地，箕伯所保——朝鮮為箕子封國。箕子乃紂之叔父，殷末三仁之一。佯狂避禍，周滅商後封於朝鮮，以殷禮化其民。宜人宜家——利人利家。業處子孫——事業傳於後代。求事大喜——所求皆成。此為大畜本卦自變：「君子以多識前言往行，以畜其德。」箕子正合此旨——蓄德以待，暗世中全身，而後以所蓄之學行化一方。蓄之極致在於世代傳承，生生不息。
Jiao Shi Yi Lin 《焦氏易林》, manuscript from the Wenyuan Pavilion Siku Quanshu, Qianlong period, Qing dynasty.
National Palace Museum, accession nos. 故庫017987–017990
Fascicle 2, page 66
Read from the manuscript leaf
Shown unpunctuated, as in the manuscript.
About this reading
Read from the scanned leaf.
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Mountain (艮)
Same lower trigram: Heaven (乾)