EN (English)
䷍
Hexagram 14 of 64
Great Possession
大有 · Dà Yǒu
A single yin line in the ruling place holding five yang lines willingly. The hexagram is about wealth, capacity and influence, and about the conduct that keeps them.
abundance
stewardship
modesty in wealth
responsibility
- King Wen number
- 14 of 64
- Above
- ☲ Lí · Fire
- Below
- ☰ Qián · Heaven
- Composition
- Fire over Heaven
- Lines, bottom to top
- Solid · solid · solid · solid · broken · solid
- Chinese
- 大有 · Dà Yǒu
The Judgment
The source. It gets through.
Two characters, one of the shortest Judgments in the book. Abundance needs no elaboration; what to do with it takes six lines.
The Image
Fire high above heaven: Great Possession. So the noble person curbs what is harmful, encourages what is good, and accepts heaven's benevolent mandate.
Possession is immediately converted into a duty of discrimination. Having much means deciding what to promote.
What it means
Da You has five strong lines and one weak one, and the weak line is in charge. A yielding ruler holds great resources by consent rather than by grip, which the classic treats as the only stable form of abundance.
The Judgment is almost curt. Supreme success, and then nothing more, because the interesting question is not whether you have a lot but how you behave while you do. Every line answers that question.
The answers are consistent and slightly austere. Refuse the harmful connections that wealth attracts. Load the wagon and take it somewhere. Give upward rather than accumulate. Do not display what you have. Be sincere enough that people are sincere back. The classic is describing stewardship, and it is unusually confident about the results: the top line receives heaven's blessing outright, which no other line in the book quite manages.
The Image turns possession into editorial judgement. When you hold resources you are choosing what to suppress and what to promote, whether or not you admit it, and the hexagram asks that this be done deliberately.
In a reading
Great Possession as an answer is favourable and comes with conditions. You have, or are about to have, more than enough of something: means, standing, attention, options.
The counsel is to be selective about associations, generous in direction, and quiet about the extent of it. The hexagram's failure mode is not loss, it is display, and the fourth line is the one to sit with.
The six lines
Read a line's text only when the cast made it a moving line. They are listed from the top of the figure down, the way the hexagram is drawn.
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Nine at the top
Blessed by heaven. Good fortune. Nothing that does not further.
The most favourable line ending in the entire book, and it sits above a hexagram of restraint and generosity.
-
Six in the fifth place
His sincerity is met with sincerity, and carries authority. Good fortune.
The ruling line. A yielding centre that is trusted, and is respected precisely because it does not compel.
-
Nine in the fourth place
He does not make a display of his abundance. No blame.
The hexagram's most practical line: having a great deal and declining to perform it.
-
Nine in the third place
A duke makes his offering to the Son of Heaven. A small person could not do this.
Putting what you have at the service of something above you. The text says pettiness is simply incapable of the gesture.
-
Nine in the second place
A big wagon for loading. There is somewhere to go. No blame.
Capacity matched to purpose. Ample means and a real destination for them.
-
Nine at the beginning
No dealings with what is harmful. This is not blameworthy. Stay aware of the difficulty and there is no blame.
Wealth attracts bad associations first. The line's whole counsel is early, unsentimental selection.
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