I Ching Hexagram 14
Hexagram 14: Da You (大有)
Composed of 乾 (Qian) below and 离 (Li) above · great-possession · abundance · generosity · ownership
The Judgment
大有：元亨。
Da You (Great Possession): great, and it flows. Two words and no more — the judgment states that what you hold is significant and that it moves without obstruction, then leaves every question of risk to the lines.
Translation notes
- 元亨: Wilhelm renders "great possession... great success / high success" — Two words, and the second is not a guarantee. 亨 is 通 — flow, circulation, unimpeded development. Also note what is missing: there is no 贞 here, where hexagrams 1 and 11 have one. The text does not claim that a great holding is automatically a correct one, nor that it lasts. Everything about the risk sits in the lines, which is why line 1 is about avoiding exposure and line 6 is about the source of help.
- 无交害: Wilhelm renders "no crossing-relationships to harm (line 1)" — 交 is not 'crossing' — it is the ordinary word for contact, exchange, dealings. The line says that while this holding is still small, harm has not come into contact with you. It is a statement about scale and timing: the risk arrives with the size, not before it.
The judgment above quotes the classical Chinese of the Zhou Yi (public domain); the English gloss and modern reading are our own. Compare with James Legge's The I Ching (Sacred Books of the East, Vol 16) , 1882 (public domain).
Quick Answers
Is hexagram 14 (Da You) good or bad?
Good, and understated. It is one of the twelve auspicious hexagrams, and its judgment is the shortest in the book: 元亨, two words. Whether it works for you depends almost entirely on the fifth line — trust plus firmness. Without both, a great holding turns into a display, and the top line is the quiet warning that a full person can also become a closed one.
What does hexagram 14 (Da You) mean in love?
It means the relationship has substance, and the thing to manage is excess rather than doubt. The love hexagram here is the fifth line: sincerity that everyone can see combined with an authority that everyone can also see — warmth that has a spine. If you are single, the reading is about what you bring. If partnered, it is a prompt to be generous beyond the two of you and to keep your word exactly.
What happens when line 2 of hexagram 14 (Da You) changes?
Line 2 is 九二, the great cart bearing a heavy load. Flip it and Da You becomes Hexagram 30 (Li, Clinging) — the load is still there, but the vehicle is no longer the right container. Concretely: a responsibility you were managing well becomes something you have to keep holding onto, and the shift is a signal to build a proper structure around it — a team, a process, an actual successor — instead of carrying it personally.
The Six Lines
Read your line of interest below. Lines are read from the bottom (line 1) to the top (line 6). A changing line means the hexagram is transforming — see the related hexagrams at the bottom.
初九
无交害，匪咎，艰则无咎。No contact with harm. It is not blame; if you keep to the hard road, no blame. Changing into Hexagram 50 (Ding, The Cauldron).
A small but real holding, still below everyone else's level of wealth or standing, and the counsel is to keep it modest — nothing harmful has reached you yet precisely because nothing has been exposed, so do not spend this quiet early phase announcing the scale of what you have.
九二
大车以载，有攸往，无咎。A great cart bears the load. There is somewhere to go; no blame. Changing into Hexagram 30 (Li, Clinging).
The load is heavy and the vehicle was built for it, which makes this the line for a substantial responsibility you can genuinely carry — a team, a budget, a household, a long project — so take the big thing, because the strength here is capacity rather than caution.
九三
公用亨于天子，小人弗克。The prince offers to the Son of Heaven; the small man cannot achieve this. Changing into Hexagram 38 (Kui, Opposition).
The one place where position and substance come apart — real ability in a small rank, with the capacity for the high table and no standing to reach it — so put the work in front of the people with authority rather than hoarding it for a private reputation.
九四
匪其彭，无咎。Not the equal of his neighbor. No blame. Changing into Hexagram 26 (Da Chu, Great Taming).
Beside the most powerful line in the hexagram, this one deliberately keeps itself smaller, and that near-miss in rank which you stop short of claiming is a form of integrity here, so do not compete with the person above you on their terms.
六五
厥孚交如，威如，吉。His sincerity woven through, his authority shown. Good fortune. Changing into Hexagram 1 (Qian, The Creative).
The owner of the great holding, and what it takes to hold it: trust that is evident everywhere plus a firmness that is also evident, since softness without reliability and firmness without trust will each cost you the position.
上九
自天祐之，吉无不利。Heaven favors him. Good fortune; nothing is not favorable. Changing into Hexagram 34 (Da Zhuang, Great Power).
The text ends without counsel, because at the top there is nothing left to instruct — it simply reports that those who hold properly are supported, and the practical form of that is knowing when to stop and hand the holding over.
Hexagram 14 in Love, Career & Decisions
Love & Relationships
Warm, generous, and slightly too much — a relationship with real substance in it, where the warning is excess rather than lack. Partnered: 六五 describes what actually works, trust that everyone can see plus a firmness that everyone can also see, and that combination does more for a relationship than tenderness does. Single: the holding described is worth noticing before the person — this hexagram is about what you bring, so the question is what you have built that you can offer without performing. The line to watch is 上九: a good holding can quietly turn inward.
Be generous on purpose this week — plan something for the people who are not invited, and let your partner choose half of it.
Career & Work
Favorable for owning and running something, less so for competing for a bigger chair. Answer early: yes to leading a team, running a business line, taking the role that comes with responsibility for results; no to positioning moves aimed only at title. 九四 is the key line in corporate life — being right next to the top and consciously not contending is what keeps you there. 九三 warns against the resentment of someone qualified but unrecognized, and the hexagram's answer is to make the capability visible to whoever can act on it.
Document what you can do that nobody else on the team can do, and send that to the person who can authorize you.
Making a Decision
YES for ownership, NO for acquisition of the flashy kind. The judgment's 元亨 supports going ahead with a substantial undertaking you control, and the strong lower trigram means the foundation is real. Watch three things: line 2 is a heavy load and that is fine; line 3 is capability without standing, which is the position to leave; line 5 is the condition for keeping the holding, which is trust plus firmness. If your plan depends on outshining a colleague rather than running your own thing well, the text's answer is no. A close match on someone else's territory (九四) should end in a smaller role rather than a fight.
Favorable when you are taking responsibility for something real — decline the role that is mostly status, and do not fight above you for it.
Health & Wellbeing
Full and bright. Da You's energy is heat, capacity, and held resources, which is why it reads as appetite and genuinely good condition. The classical caution is the one that applies to any full vessel: the top line is about not letting the fullness become self-contained, and that tendency usually shows up first as a person who never spends the surplus on themselves. For entertainment and reflection only, not medical advice.
Spend the surplus on your body rather than on your status — extra water, extra walking, extra sleep — before the account fills and nothing goes out.
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