Yi Jing · Chinese tarot
Great Accumulation
Hexagram 26 of the Yi Jing · 大畜 Dà Chù
The figure
The Mountain above Heaven: the immovable restraining a great force, energy held beneath the halt. The image of great accumulation.
What this figure illuminates
Great Accumulation lights up the strength kept in reserve, nourished by restraint before it is spent. Holding back is not blockage: it is concentration.
For a decision, the figure invites you to defer in order to strike better: “what I am holding back right now — is it charging for a right use, or stagnating for lack of being used?”.
The classical text
The Judgment
The great is held and stored. Stay firm and upright; take your nourishment out in the world, not idle at home — good fortune — and it furthers to cross the great stream.
The Image
Heaven held within the mountain: vast force in reserve. Seeing this, the noble person stores up the words and deeds of those who came before, and so builds their own strength.
The Six Lines
- First line
Danger ahead. It furthers to halt your advance rather than push into it.
- Second line
The cart's axle-strap is off — you cannot roll forward yet. Accept the halt without struggle.
- Third line
Now the good horses run, and the way opens — but know the difficulty, stay firm, and keep your guard practiced.
- Fourth line
A young bull's horns capped with a board before they can gore — strength curbed early, at the source. Great good fortune.
- Fifth line
Like a boar's tusks made harmless at the root: master a wild force by its cause, not its symptom. Good fortune.
- Sixth line
You attain the open road of heaven itself — the pent-up force released into free passage. Great progress.
Daoa's wording, written after the classical reference translations, now in the public domain: James Legge (1882) and Charles de Harlez (1889).
A question to keep
Is what you're holding back charging to serve, or stagnating?
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