14. Great Possession
Great Possession is hexagram 14 of the 64 in the I Ching, also known as the Book of Changes (in Chinese Dà Yǒu, 大有).
Also known as: Possession in Great Measure.
Great possession asks first not for pride, but for a dignity that can carry what fell to it.
14. Great Possession大有 · Dà YǒuGreat possession asks first not for pride, but for a dignity that can carry what fell to it.Hexagram 14 (Great Possession) often shows up around plenty of resources at your disposal, success and abundance or having influence and reach. At its core: Great possession asks first not for pride, but for a dignity that can carry what fell to it.
Where this hexagram often fits.
Situations
- plenty of resources at your disposal
- success and abundance
- having influence and reach
- carrying a strong reputation
- managing wealth responsibly
- being in the spotlight
- having a lot to give
- growing big without losing yourself
Questions people ask
- How do I carry abundance without disappearing into it?
- What do success and influence ask of me?
- How do I use my resources generously instead of possessively?
- How do I stay myself when I have a lot?
What is often at play
- pride
- responsibility
- temptation to show off
- a sense of abundance
What this asks for
- keeping measure
- generosity
- giving light rather than showing off
- staying free of your possessions
Also searched as
- Possession in Great Measure
- Great possession
- Abundance
- Wealth
- Reach
- Influence
- Resources
Core image
This hexagram shows abundance, capacity, reach, or light that stretches wide. Much is available: strength, means, clarity, influence. Yet the meaning does not lie in the having itself. The question is whether the great possession is also carried greatly.
Tension
Abundance makes visible what scarcity could still hide. Whoever is small of spirit only becomes more clearly small in great possession. So this hexagram is less triumphant than it seems. What is large draws not only opportunity, but also the demand for measure, generosity, and inner order.
Distortion
Great possession distorts when one identifies with the possession. Then wealth becomes décor, influence theater, capacity a mirror for one's own importance. What was meant to shine becomes display, or an instrument of control.
Stance
Carry the great without inflating it. Let capacity give light, not only weight. Keep the inside wide enough not to be walled up by possession. Whoever receives much must learn all the more carefully to stay free of themselves.
Closing line
Only the one who does not come to love the great as a mirror can keep carrying it greatly.
Plain-language entrances.
Plain-language entrances to this hexagram. They help with search and recognition, while the reading itself remains rooted in the text and your question.
Hexagram 14 - Great Possession
Hexagram 14 - Great Possession gives language to a recognisable I Ching pattern. Read the linked hexagram as the source, not as a separate interpretation.
Changing lines of hexagram 14
- Line 1. At the start the possession is still young and vulnerable to wrong handling. For that reason the relation with it must stay sober. What shows off early soon loses its blessing.
- Line 2. Here the great can truly be carried. The capacity rests not on bravado, but on load-bearing strength. There is room to transport much without buckling under it.
- Line 3. This line shows that great possession only becomes right when it can enter the service of something higher than private honor. What burns only for one's own house stays smaller than it seems.
- Line 4. At this point comparison must be let go. Whoever keeps measuring themselves loses the dignity of what is already given. Greatness need not compete to be real.
- Line 5. Here abundance is carried lightly and kindly. There is dignity without threat and influence without hardness. That is exactly why this greatness is trusted.
- Line 6. When great possession is at its best, it does not look merely humanly earned. Something of grace rests on it. This line asks for reverence, because not everything that became great was purely one's own work.
The form beneath hexagram 14
Derived from the structure of the I Ching — not an interpretation, but the shape underneath it. The reading above remains the source.
- Balance. Hexagram 14 is predominantly yang — 5 yang lines and 1 yin lines.
- Line pattern. From bottom to top: yang, yang, yang, yang, yin, yang.
- Movement. 63 possible paths of change run from this image — every combination of moving lines leads to a different hexagram.
Built from
Hexagram 14 is built from two trigrams, the natural forces of the I Ching.
Related hexagrams
Sources & reading
Our text is our own, ratified reading of the canonical I Ching — source → human → pattern → fitting movement. It is not a reproduction of the translations above, and not prediction, psychology, or new-age. The reference translations serve to calibrate; protected prose is not taken over.
- Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes — The I Ching or Book of Changes. symbolic-philosophical, with the Ten Wings — the most influential Western edition.
- James Legge — The Yî King (Sacred Books of the East). scholarly-philological (public domain).
Read what is in motion in your situation.
A hexagram only takes on meaning in relation to your own question. Ask one and read what appears.