Daily I-Ching · Thursday, May 21, 2026
大畜 Hexagram 26: Great Taming
Great creative force, held and concentrated by a strong outer form. The figure favours accumulation before expenditure: study, discipline, the building of capacity.
Reflect today: Where in the day does the pattern of great taming already show itself, and what single act would answer it well?
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Today's Meaning
Great creative force, held and concentrated by a strong outer form. The figure favours accumulation before expenditure: study, discipline, the building of capacity. In time, the dam breaks open into achievement. Leaving home for worthy service is favoured.
Practice
- Name Great Taming. Look for the place where great accumulation is already shaping the day: Great creative force, held and concentrated by a strong outer form.
- Practice the Image. Let the Image become conduct: the superior person acquaints themselves with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to strengthen their character.
- Answer Hexagram 26. Before the day ends, make one visible choice that fits Great Taming instead of forcing the day to answer your preference.
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The Illustrated Story
A prince, instead of hunting, spent his youth in the library reading the chronicles of every dynasty. His courtiers thought him weak. When he became king, he moved his court before the famine, built granaries before the war, married his daughter to a neighboring prince before the rivalry turned deadly. "How did you know?" they asked. "I read old books," he said. "All of these things have happened before." The great power is not force; it is pressure that has been stored — by study, discipline, patience — until the moment when a gentle push moves what brute strength never could.
Continue to the full Hexagram 26 page for Judgment, Image, trigrams, and line commentary.
Open Full Hexagram 26