Key 26, 大畜 Dà Xù: heaven held inside the mountain

Meaning

大畜 is the great taming, or the great store: where key 9 held back a little, here the mountain holds heaven itself. The strong lower trigram is checked by the mountain above, and the check gathers its force instead of wasting it. The statement of the hexagram says firmness is good, not eating at home brings good fortune, and it is good to cross the great river. Our gloss is great restraint, great store. For the text see the hexagram 26 page.

The Image turns the store into learning: the noble person takes in many words of the past and deeds of former times. Key 26 pairs with key 25 and has key 45 as its opposite.

The three bands

The Shadow band, Bolting, is the first line, 有厲利已: there is danger; it is better to stop. Its failure is running ahead before the strength has been gathered. The Gift band, Learning, is the Image, 君子以多識前言往行, 以畜其德: the noble person knows many sayings of the past and deeds of former times and so builds up character. The Siddhi band, Plenitude, is the top line, 何天之衢: what a road through heaven, the store so full that the way stands open.

The bands move from impatient release to patient storing to a fullness that no longer needs holding back. They describe a quality, never anyone's prospects.

In a profile

Key 26 belongs to no particular row. It stands in a profile wherever one of the thirteen bodies stood between 17°00′ Sagittarius and 22°37′30″ Sagittarius at birth or at the design moment, and so it can fill any of the thirteen rows or the three further tags.

The Sun passes through it each year from about 9 to 14 December. People born then have key 26 as their Life's Work and its opposite, key 45, as their Evolution, the Earth's place. For people born about three months later, from about 6 to 10 March, it is the Radiance, where the Sun stood at the design moment.

Each of its six lines is 56′15″ wide. A position from 17°00′ Sagittarius is in line 1, read by our theme Foundation; one from 21°41′15″ Sagittarius is in line 6, Overview. Every key's lines take the same six themes of ours, and the line of a fast body like the Moon depends on the birth time to the hour.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Hexagram and number

大畜 Dà Xù, hexagram 26 in the received (King Wen) order of the Zhouyi; Legge (1882) writes the name Tâ Khû sourced

Trigram images

Heaven below, Mountain above, as the Shuo Gua names them sourced

Our gloss

great restraint, great store: EsoTerrier's own, the same in our I Ching chart, not a translator's title our construction

Our words for the three bands

Bolting, Learning and Plenitude, written in October 2026 from the hexagram's own texts; none is one of Rudd's words our construction

Opposite on the wheel

Key 45, 180° round the wheel, with every line reversed; Rudd calls it the programming partner sourced

Pair in the received order

Key 25, 无妄 Wú Wàng: the same six lines turned upside down, next to it in the received order sourced

Within and upside down

Lines 2 to 5 give 54 歸妹 Guī Mèi; the figure turned upside down gives 25 无妄 Wú Wàng sourced

Codon ring (Rudd)

Rudd groups this key in his Ring of Light, which he ties to threonine: his grouping and his choice of amino acid, not a finding of genetics sourced

Place on the wheel

Gate 26 of Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987 to 1989), 17°00′ Sagittarius to 22°37′30″ Sagittarius (257° to 262.625° of tropical longitude): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced

How the schools read it

The Zhouyi, after Legge (1882)

Advantage in being firm and correct; good fortune in not eating at home; advantage in crossing the great stream. The text in full is on the hexagram 26 page.

Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987 onward)

Gate 26, in the Heart centre. The parent system gives the gate its own name and reading, which are Jovian Archive's and which we do not give here.

Richard Rudd, The Gene Keys (2009)

Key 26, read at three bands he calls the Shadow, the Gift and the Siddhi, each with a word of his own, under a chapter title of his own; we reproduce neither. He names key 45 its programming partner.

EsoTerrier

Strength held in store: it bolts before the strength is gathered, stores up what others have said and done, and at its peak holds a store so full that it opens the road.

Claims about it

• Key 26 is a code held in the genes, and contemplating it changes how they are expressed.

  unverified

  What the record shows: The central metaphor of Rudd's system, given by its author, not a finding. The profile is the positions of thirteen bodies at two moments, read on a 64-part wheel; no gene, codon or measurement of the body enters it.

• Key 26 belongs to the Ring of Light, a chemical family in the body tied to threonine.

  unverified

  What the record shows: Rudd's grouping. His ring sizes follow the real number of codons per amino acid in the genetic code, but which hexagram goes with which codon is his own choice, and nothing in genetics links a hexagram to an amino acid.

• The place of key 26 on the zodiac, 17°00′ Sagittarius to 22°37′30″ Sagittarius, is an old I Ching teaching.

  false

  What the record shows: The wheel is Ra Uru Hu's, fixed between 1987 and 1989 by turning Shao Yong's 11th-century circle of the hexagrams so that hexagram 41 begins at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we know ties the hexagrams to degrees of the zodiac.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Hexagram 26: Great Restraint the I Ching text this key is read from
• Key 45: 萃 Cuì, gathering, the many assembled its opposite on the wheel
• Key 25: 无妄 Wú Wàng, without pretence, unscheming its pair in the received order
• Key 54: 歸妹 Guī Mèi, the younger sister weds the hexagram within it, lines 2 to 5
• Human Design gate 26 the same place in the system the profile is calculated by