Hexagram 34 for love
Hexagram 34 Great Vigor in love and relationships
Da Zhuang is thunder above heaven: strength in motion, four yang lines surging up under two yin. In a relationship this is energy, desire, and the readiness to push — and the Judgment immediately qualifies it: 'steadiness is favourable', and the Great Image adds that the superior person 'takes no step that is not according to propriety'. The hexagram does not doubt the feeling; it doubts whether force is the way to express it. Its central picture is a ram with its horns caught in a fence, which is what insistence looks like from the other side.
The lines sort the kinds of strength. Line one charges and will be exhausted; two keeps the centre and is the hexagram's good place; three uses force and gets caught; four finds the fence opening because its strength carries rather than butts. The two yin lines at the top show the other party: five lets the contest go gently, six is stuck between going and retreating. A changing line below asks how you are using your vigour; one above asks what it is doing to the person who receives it.
The hexagram in brief
Thunder above heaven: great strength on the move. Favourable to persevere correctly — real power stays within the bounds of propriety; the ram that butts the hedge gets stuck.
You have the strength; use it with restraint and legitimacy, or it turns against you.
The judgment
大壯：利貞。Tâ Kwang indicates that (under the conditions which it symbolises) it will be advantageous to be firm and correct.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 大壯 Great Vigor has its own page:
- 初九Nine at the beginningstrength in the toes · charging ahead · certain exhaustion
- 九二Nine in the second placecentred strength · steadiness · the mean
- 九三Nine in the third placethe ram and the fence · brute force · the net of restraint
- 九四Nine in the fourth placethe fence gives way · axle of the great cart · strength that carries
- 六五Six in the fifth placelosing the ram · letting hardness go · ease
- 上六Six at the topstuck on the fence · neither forward nor back · difficulty brings good
The same hexagram for
Questions
- Is hexagram 34, Great Vigor, a good sign for love?
- Da Zhuang is thunder above heaven: strength in motion, four yang lines surging up under two yin. In a relationship this is energy, desire, and the readiness to push — and the Judgment immediately qualifies it: 'steadiness is favourable', and the Great Image adds that the superior person 'takes no step that is not according to propriety'. The hexagram does not doubt the feeling; it doubts whether force is the way to express it. Its central picture is a ram with its horns caught in a fence, which is what insistence looks like from the other side.
- What does Hexagram 34, 大壯 Great Vigor, mean?
- Thunder above heaven: great strength on the move. Favourable to persevere correctly — real power stays within the bounds of propriety; the ram that butts the hedge gets stuck.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).