Meaning
Five whole lines and one broken one, in the fourth place: the figure itself is the hexagram's subject, a single weak line checking a great deal of strength. Its name joins 小, small, with 畜, which means to rear, to store or to restrain, so the title holds two ideas at once, a small gathering and a small holding back. The Judgment promises progress and then gives the picture the hexagram is known for: dense clouds rolling in from the western border and no rain falling.
The Image draws a modest lesson from wind blowing across the sky. Large action is not yet possible, so the superior man refines the outward forms of his conduct, the small things that are within reach. In our own words, 小畜 describes a time when influence works by gentleness and detail rather than by force, and when what is building up has not yet broken.
The lines
The lower lines turn back to their own path, the first by itself and the second drawn back by the first, and both find good fortune. The third is the hexagram's mishap: in Legge's English, "a carriage, the strap beneath which has been removed", or a husband and wife who look at each other with averted eyes, strength that has lost what held it together. The fourth, the restraining line, is sincere, and danger passes; the fifth, sincere too, draws its neighbours into its work. At the top the rain has fallen and the advance is stayed, and the text warns that restraint held past its time turns into a danger of its own.
Its pair is 履, hexagram 10, the same lines turned upside down; its opposite is 豫, hexagram 16.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 小畜 when the year, month and day leave 5 on eight, which puts 巽 wind above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 1, which puts 乾 heaven below. Which line moves depends on what the whole total leaves on six, and each line turns the figure into a different hexagram:
- Line 1 (初九) moving: becomes 57 巽 Xùn, Entering Wind
- Line 2 (九二) moving: becomes 37 家人 Jiā Rén, The Household
- Line 3 (九三) moving: becomes 61 中孚 Zhōng Fú, Trust at the Centre
- Line 4 (六四) moving: becomes 1 乾 Qián, Heaven's Strength
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 26 大畜 Dà Xù, Great Restraint
- Line 6 (上九) moving: becomes 5 需 Xū, Waiting
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 38 睽 Kuí, Estrangement. Everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour has the same cast, so the figure describes a moment, not a person.
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.
- Trigram virtues (Shuogua, chapter 7)
- 乾 strong, untiring below; 巽 entering, pervading above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- father below, eldest daughter above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- head and horse below; thighs and fowl above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Metal below, Wood above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 10 履 Lǚ, Treading; every line flipped: 16 豫 Yù, Readiness sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 9, from 245.75° to 251.375° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Small Restraint: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 小畜 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “(We see) dense clouds, but no rain coming from our borders in the west.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Wind moving above the sky; the superior man adorns the outward show of his virtue.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 巽 above when the year, month and day leave 5 on eight, 乾 below when the same total with the hour leaves 1.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 9 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Wind across the sky, dense clouds and no rain yet: the small holds the great in check for a while; a time for refining details, when gentle influence works where force would not.
Claims about it
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Gate 9 of Human Design, at 245.75° to 251.375° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 9.
falseWhat the record shows: The wheel is Shao Yong's circle rotated by Ra Uru Hu in 1987 to 1989 so that hexagram 41 starts at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we found puts the hexagrams on degrees of the zodiac.
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Being born under 小畜 Xiǎo Xù fixes a person's character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A modern reading with no source in the tradition. The Zhouyi has no birth hexagram; the cast reads a figure, not a person, and everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour shares it.
