I Ching Da Xu Meaning: Hexagram 26 Explained

Draw Da Xu 大畜 and students most often hear two sentences. One: about to make it, a great accumulation is coming. One: keep saving, move nothing.

Neither sentence is enough. Da Xu is Mountain over Heaven, The Taming Power of the Great. Heaven inside the mountain. The firm and strong stopped by the mountain: not strangled, stored. This hexagram wants accumulating virtue, storing force, raising talent until it can leave the door. Not eating at home, luck. Beneficial to cross a great stream. Shut in the house as a vault is not Da Xu’s end.

Mountain over Heaven: stop the firm and strong, then it is great storing

Da Xu is Mountain over Heaven, The Taming Power of the Great. Upper Gen 艮, mountain; lower Qian 乾, Heaven. Heaven in the mountain. Qian is pure yang’s strength; Gen is stopping. Able to stop the strong, then you store large. Cannot stop, force scatters; only stop and cannot use, force stuffs.

Do not reverse above and below. Heaven over Mountain is Dun 遯: Qian above, Gen below, mountain under Heaven — that is retreat. Da Xu is mountain over Heaven, Heaven contained by the mountain — that is accumulating. Separate it from Xiao Xu 小畜: Xiao Xu is Wind over Heaven, Xun above, Qian below, wind in heaven, dense clouds without rain, storing small, rain cannot fall. Da Xu can cross a great stream. Treat Da Xu as Dun and people will flee when they should study. Treat Da Xu as Xiao Xu and people will think rain never falls.

The Xugua says: 「有無妄然後可畜，故受之以大畜。」 After Wu Wang 無妄, then you can store; therefore Da Xu follows. Before it is Wu Wang. Not reckless, then you talk of storing. Store while reckless, and what you store is fake goods, a name of incorrect origin. So Da Xu is not grabbing every coin you see. After being correct, then receive, raise, prepare.

The Tuan says: 「大畜，剛健篤實輝光，日新其德。」 I almost copy this for students every time. Firm and strong is Qian below; honest and solid is Gen above. The two together, then it shines, and virtue has to be new each day. Storing is not sitting in a warehouse going mouldy. The firm above, honoring the worthy, able to stop the strong: great correctness. Not eating at home, luck: raising the worthy. Beneficial to cross a great stream: responding to Heaven. Not eating at home is going out to be used, to raise the worthy, to do work. Crossing a great stream is truly getting through a great difficulty, because it corresponds with Heaven.

The Xiang says: 「天在山中，大畜。君子以多識前言往行，以畜其德。」 Heaven in the mountain, Da Xu. The superior person widely remembers former words and past deeds, to store virtue. What you accumulate is how predecessors spoke, how they did. Draw Da Xu and only stare at an account number: you dropped the word virtue. In class I often say: this hexagram can ask about study, exams, further training, ripening a work — not necessarily first asking a fortune.

The judgment is three sentences, all hard: 「利貞。不家食，吉。利涉大川。」 Beneficial to be correct: store correctly. Not eating at home, luck: do not shut ability in the kitchen. Beneficial to cross a great stream: stored enough, you can cross a river — not forever preparing a lesson.

Career and wealth: store first, then leave the door

Ask about career and draw Da Xu: overall direction is charging, thickening the goods, keeping people to train. Good for further study, writing a system, making a product until it can be taken out. Not good then for only relying on a streak of Qian’s charge to open a shopfront. The initial nine already wrote there is danger, beneficial to stop: just about to move, there is danger, beneficial to stop. Stop is stop. Qian below wants to run; the mountain above presses. Pressing is cherishing, not denying you.

The most expensive tuition then is “I am all prepared, why still not leave the door.” Prepared or not, look at the line. The initial nine, nine in the second often still coming off the spokes, still stopping. Nine in the third, a good horse can chase, but still keep correct in hardship, practice cart and defence every day. The upper nine is shouldering Heaven’s thoroughfare; the road opens, it opens. Use the first line as the upper: you will crash in the mountain. Treat the upper as never arriving: you make Da Xu into Xiao Xu, clouds accumulating, rain not falling.

For wealth, Da Xu is like a warehouse thickening. Income can be kept, skill can grow, people can be raised. Short trades, staking principal at once to swap a story: does not fit the hexagram. Not eating at home, used on wealth, is also plain: your ability has to be able to swap for salary, orders, a post outside — not only feeling good at home. Beneficial to cross a great stream: stored enough, you can do one truly large: cross a market, an industry, that river you have always feared. Not stored and crossing: Qian moving recklessly. Stored and never crossing: Gen gone too far.

Ask about a partnership and Da Xu: look who is stopping, who is strong. One only wants to charge, one only wants to block: you cannot store. Able to stop the strong means: someone holds the gate, someone runs the horse, and the one running the horse submits to this gate. A calf’s restraint, a gelded boar’s tusks: both are managing the fierce end early, then later great luck.

Love: a relationship has to be raised, and also taken out the door

Ask about love and draw Da Xu: common is not stormy. Two people thickening the days: storing learning, a family bottom, temper together. You can talk of marriage, making the relationship public, bringing the other person into a career. Not eating at home, in love: do not only hide a person at home to cherish. Let this relationship stand the road outside.

If you are already together, Da Xu reminds you to accumulate virtue. Oral good does not count as storing. Put a restraint on a bad temper while it is small: more useful than waiting until it grows into a wild boar then pulling teeth. Six in the fourth, a calf’s restraint, great luck: that. Six in the fifth, a gelded boar’s tusks: the tusks are fierce; the fundamental method is removing that restlessness, not fighting the tusks hard. In love always treating the symptom: draw six in the fifth, think of treating the root.

If you are single and draw Da Xu, a person may still be raising in the mountain. First raise yourself until you can leave the door: life, study, the body, a job you can take out. Smashing with dense dates is like crossing a great stream without storing. Not eating at home also reminds: do not only wait at home. Study, do, appear in the right occasion: luck.

Workplace people and Da Xu: good for learning from seniors, remembering former words and past deeds. Honoring the worthy is this hexagram’s bone. Looking down on elders, old work, only trusting your own streak of Qian: you cannot store large. When promotion is blocked, first ask: is this mountain harming you, or letting you store virtue thick then leave the door.

Put a restraint on the calf early; practice the horse daily; the road opens at the upper nine

In class I pick five lines to teach Da Xu: stop, run, prevent early, treat the root, leave the door.

Initial nine: 有厲，利已. 已, stop. Just about to advance, there is danger; stop, then beneficial. Draw this line: not that you are no good. The time is in storing, not in showing off. A proposal can be written and put aside; a contract, do not sign today. Qian most hates this line, because it most wants to leave the door. Hate it or not, you still have to stop.

Nine in the third: 良馬逐，利艱貞. A good horse can run. Still run it as a hard correct path, and daily practice the cart and defence. Draw this line: career can be pushed, but not pushed lightly. Practice, prepare, leave oil, then chase. Beneficial to go forth is written in this line; the condition is keeping correct in hardship, not being heroic.

Six in the fourth: 童牛之牿，元吉. Put a crossbar on a calf while horns are not hard, prevent it goring people. Draw this line: great luck is in early. Bad habits, a dangerous cooperation, a child’s rules, your own temper: all put on while small. Wait until the ox is large then put it on, and blood will be seen.

Six in the fifth: 豶豕之牙，吉. A boar’s tusks are fierce; treating the tusks is not as good as treating that force. Remove the root of restlessness, and the tusks are not a problem. Draw this line: do not fight surface thorns hard. Tusks in people, tusks in the market: find what they rely on to be fierce, store from there. Luck is in treating the root.

Upper nine: 何天之衢，亨. 何 is shouldering, able to bear. Heaven’s great road in front of you, it opens. Stored to here, you can leave the door. Draw the upper nine: not eating at home, crossing a great stream, then truly matches the time. Still covering it at home: sitting the opening to waste.

So when people say “I drew Da Xu, wait more,” ask again: waiting at the initial nine, or already the upper nine? In the mountain you should stop; on the road you should walk. Mix them: not honest and solid. Missing the time.

In class I have students write three lines for Da Xu

First line: what this time will store. Money, skill, the body, a piece of work, a course of study: write it concrete. Write “success” too empty; the mountain cannot hold it.

Second line: which foot should stop now. Which impulse is pretending to be ready. The stop of beneficial-to-stop needs an object.

Third line: where is the exit of not eating at home. After studying, where to use it; after raising, where to serve. Cannot write an exit, and Da Xu becomes hoarding.

Xiao Xu is dense clouds without rain; Da Xu can cross a great stream. The difference is whether storing is correct, thick, willing to leave the door. Xiao Xu: I Ching Xiao Xu Meaning | Hexagram 9 How to Read: Small Accumulation, Clouds Without Rain. If the Wu Wang before is not walked through, storing will store onto recklessness. First read I Ching Wu Wang Meaning | Hexagram 25 How to Read: Innocence, Do Not Act Recklessly. After storing, raise; the next hexagram is Yi 頤: I Ching Yi (Nourishment) Meaning | Hexagram 27 How to Read: Nourishment, Mouth and Who Feeds Whom. The lower trigram is Qian; how to use the firm and strong, when to hide, when arrogant: still return to I Ching Qian Meaning | Hexagram 1 How to Read: Hidden Dragon to Arrogant Dragon. Qian is flying; Da Xu is first raising the force of flying in the mountain.

I Ching Da Xu FAQ

Is Da Xu very good wealth, will I make a fortune?

It can thicken. It is not a lottery. What thickens is usable capital: skill, credit, stores of grain, the qualification of being raised by people. Short-term fortune asked of Da Xu, the answer is often: store first, do not gamble. Hear Da Xu as a getting-rich hexagram, and you leave the door at the initial nine: there is danger.

Not eating at home: must I not eat at home, must I take a job?

It means your talent should not only digest itself at home. Taking a job, taking work, teaching, taking a work out for people to use: all not eating at home. Not a ban on cooking. Some people raise learning in a study a lifetime and never take it out. Draw this hexagram: luck is not in the study. It is at the door.

How do Da Xu and Xiao Xu differ?

Xiao Xu, wind in heaven, dense clouds without rain: storing small, cannot come down, sometimes yin storing yang, one yin five yangs. Da Xu, the mountain containing Heaven, can stop the strong, can store, can cross a great stream. One is rain still in the clouds; one is virtue already about to leave the door. Ask “can this storing move”: the two hexagrams’ answers differ.

I drew Da Xu. Should I resign to study, or after studying immediately found a company?

Look at the line. Initial nine, six in the fourth: beneficial to study, put rules on early, not a great move. Nine in the third can run, still keep correct in hardship. The upper nine looks like Heaven’s thoroughfare. Resign to study: ask whether what you study has an exit. Study then immediately found: ask whether grain in the mountain is enough to cross a river. Storing and crossing are two steps. Do not finish them in one day.

For an online hexagram, try free love divination and match both birthdays with this reading.