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Hexagram 34: Great Power

䷡ 大壯 (Dà Zhuàng) · Great power. Strength is best used with restraint.

strength, momentum, restraint, principle

Lower trigram: Heaven ☰ · Upper trigram: Thunder ☳

The judgment

Your strength is real and growing, and the temptation is to use all of it at once. Power stays great only when it is joined to what is fair and right. Move with your force, but let principle, not appetite, decide where it goes.

The image

Thunder above Heaven: a great roar rolling across the sky. Real strength shows in refusing to take paths that aren't yours to take.

The six lines

Read only the lines that changed in your casting, counting from the bottom.

• Line 1 (bottom): All the power is in your toes, eager to march before the ground is ready. Pushing ahead from such a shaky footing tends to go badly; wait until your stance is sound.
• Line 2: Steadiness pays off here. You have strength in reserve, so keep to the middle way and don't overreach.
• Line 3: A ram charges a hedge and gets its horns tangled. Those who flaunt their power get stuck; the wiser person knows they could charge and quietly chooses not to.
• Line 4: The hedge opens and nothing snags. Quiet, steady force works like the axle of a heavy cart: unseen, it carries the whole load forward.
• Line 5: Let the stubborn goat go without a fight. Dropping a hard-headed stance costs you nothing worth keeping.
• Line 6 (top): The ram is stuck in the hedge and can go neither forward nor back. Admit the difficulty plainly; seeing it clearly is what eventually frees you.

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