易I CHING · THE BOOK OF CHANGES

Hexagram 34 of 64 · King Wen sequence

Great Power

大壮 · dà zhuàng

Above
Heaven
Below
Thunder

Heaven above thunder: strength at its peak — the ram butting the hedge, and the question of what power is for.

Thunder rises to heaven: strength at maximum. Great Power is invigorating and dangerous in equal parts — the ram butting the hedge can open the field or break its own horns, and the difference is whether power has a purpose written down.

The counsel is a brace: power without rightness exhausts itself on hedges; the true man does not trample the small just because the gate is far. And the pointed line: a goat butting a hedge ruins its own horns. Strength should be spent where it compounds.

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