大壮 Great Power
Upper trigram: Thunder (thunder) · Lower trigram: Heaven (the sky)
Great strength — powerful, but it must be used rightly.
Modern interpretation
You hold real power now, and the danger is using it crudely. Be firm but not violent, upright but not rigid. Great strength serves principle, never ego — the ram that charges the fence only breaks its own horns.
The Judgment · 卦辞
利贞。
“Tâ Kwang indicates that (under the conditions which it symbolises) it will be advantageous to be firm and correct.” — James Legge, The Yî King (1882)
The six lines · 爻辞
Read from the bottom line upward. Each line pairs the received Chinese text with Legge's English translation.
壮于趾，征凶，有孚。
“The first line, undivided, shows its subject manifesting his strength in his toes. But advance will lead to evil, most certainly.”
贞吉。
“The second line, undivided, shows that with firm correctness there will be good fortune.”
小人用壮，君子用罔，贞厉。羝羊触藩，羸其角。
“The third line, undivided, shows, in the case of a small man, one using all his strength ; and in the case of a superior man, one whose rule is not to do so. Even with firm correctness the position would be perilous. (The exercise of strength in it might be compared to the case of) a ram butting against a fence, and getting his horns entangled.”
贞吉，悔亡。藩决不羸，壮于大舆之輹。
“The fourth line, undivided, shows (a case in which) firm correctness leads to good fortune, and occasion for repentance disappears. (We see) the fence opened without the horns being entangled. The strength is like that in the wheel-spokes of a large waggon.”
丧羊于易，无悔。
“The fifth line, divided, shows one who loses his ram(-like strength) in the ease of his position. (But) there will be no occasion for repentance.”
羝羊触藩，不能退，不能遂，无攸利，艰则吉。
“The sixth line, divided, shows (one who may be compared to) the ram butting against the fence, and unable either to retreat, or to advance as he would fain do. There will not be advantage in any respect ; but if he realise the difficulty (of his position), there will be good fortune.”
About changing lines
In a real I Ching reading, hexagrams are built by casting coins or yarrow stalks six times, bottom line first. Some lines come out “old” (unstable) — an old yin or old yang flips into its opposite, producing a second hexagram that shows where the situation is heading. The changing lines are the moving parts of your answer: read their individual line statements above, and they point to the direction of change.
Ask a question and cast the coins — free, with a plain-English interpretation grounded in the classical text.
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