I Ching 14: Great Possession

Judgment: an encouraging outlook, not a guarantee

Legge presents a favorable judgment, while his note warns about pride amid abundance. The fifth, divided line occupies a leading position among strong lines. Those are traditional textual themes, not measurements of your wealth, character or future. Primary text and note.

The short cues summarize Legge’s six line passages. The questions are our modern prompts, not translations or event forecasts. Read the full passage in your chosen edition if that position was marked as changing in your recorded cast. This page does not choose a rule for prioritizing several moving lines.

Check which line you are reading

Download the six structural checks (CSV)

Reading our recorded pattern from bottom to top gives 111101, with 1 meaning solid and 0 broken. Splitting it after the third entry gives lower 111 and upper 101. Counting the entries gives five solid lines and one broken line at position five. This notation preserves a drawing; it is not the number fourteen written in binary. Derivation ledger.

The fifth position is the second entry of the upper group, not the fifth row counted downward on the screen. Our display places line six at the top and line one at the bottom. If you instead start counting at the top, your selected fifth line becomes position two in this ledger, so you would read a different line passage. Derivation ledger.

In our six single-change cases, changing line one, two or three changes only the lower group. The upper group remains 101 in all three outputs. Changing line four, five or six does the reverse: the lower group remains 111. This follows from the recorded positions and can be checked entry by entry, without deciding what the result means for a person. Derivation ledger.

Changing only line five replaces the sole 0 with 1, producing 111111. Our count therefore moves from five solid and one broken to six solid and zero broken. Choosing line five here cannot leave the upper Fire group unchanged: its middle entry has changed. A reading record that shows both an unchanged drawing and this selected change needs checking before interpretation. Derivation ledger.

Changing only line two produces 101101, whereas changing only line five produces 111111. Both selected positions are the middle of a three-line group, but their outputs differ. Recording just “the middle line changed” loses the information needed to reproduce this comparison; write the position from one to six as well as the original hexagram. Derivation ledger.

For each of the other five single changes, a solid entry becomes broken, leaving four solid and two broken entries. Only the line-five case increases the solid count. That difference is a property of this starting pattern, not a claim that a solid line is more fortunate, more powerful or more desirable than a broken one. Derivation ledger.

Selecting no change in this checker returns 111101 and labels the operation “No structural change.” Selecting one position flips exactly one entry. Neither selection tells us whether your original casting actually contained a moving line; a static picture by itself does not record that extra input. Keep your casting record rather than reconstructing it from the pattern afterward. Derivation ledger.

The traditional trigram reference supplies the three-line symbols. The table above is our deterministic transformation of the stated starting pattern. It checks bookkeeping, not whether one symbol causes a real-world result. Complete ledger.

Modern situations: turn the theme into a checkable question

These are constructed exercises, not case histories or claims about what the ancient text predicts. Use the resources theme to identify a real constraint; evaluate that constraint using ordinary evidence.

Work: apparent abundance versus usable capacity

Consider a synthetic team with twelve review slots, eight already committed and a proposed task needing five more. The available capacity is 12 minus 8, or 4; the proposal exceeds it by 5 minus 4, or 1. Even an encouraging reading cannot turn those four available slots into five. The concrete next step is to reduce the task, move a commitment or obtain one additional slot. Derivation ledger.

Now hold that same twelve-slot total fixed but count only seven committed slots. Availability becomes 12 minus 7, or 5, so the five-slot proposal fits exactly and leaves no spare capacity. Compared with the eight-commitment case, only one input changed. The resulting difference is fully explained by the ledger; it is not evidence that the hexagram caused a better outcome. Derivation ledger.

Relationships: an offer is not an agreement

If two partners describe having time together but only one can name an agreed date, the missing fact is agreement, not another line calculation. Use the reading to ask who has offered what and who has accepted it; check the answer with the other person. The hexagram alone cannot supply their consent, schedule or intentions. Derivation ledger.

For a personal reading, write down the situation before choosing a lesson from the text. Separate the recorded facts, the passage you read and the action you are considering. Check the action against the people and constraints involved; do not treat an appealing metaphor as their answer.

Does Hexagram 14 mean I will become wealthy?

No forecast follows from this page. A theme of resources does not establish an amount, a deadline or a financial result. The practical task is to inspect what is available and how it is being used.

What if there are no changing lines?

Keep that fact in the record. The checker’s no-change setting leaves the drawing alone; it does not manufacture a line message. General reading conventions belong to the separate method layer, while this page stays focused on Hexagram 14.

Why does the fifth line look like the second row?

Because the drawing is displayed top down while the positions are numbered from the bottom. The explicit labels and six recorded outputs let you check which position your edition describes.

Three structural comparisons, with their operations kept separate

The nuclear figure of Hexagram 14 is Hexagram 43, with Lake above Heaven. Extract original positions two, three and four for its lower Heaven group, then positions three, four and five for upper Lake. The shared middle positions are used twice; this operation is not the same as changing the fifth line. Its purpose here is to identify a conventional structural comparison, not to supply an unrecorded moving line. Source 1

Reversing the whole drawing gives Hexagram 13, Heaven above Fire. Original position six becomes the new first position and original position one becomes the new sixth. That reversal relocates the broken line from fifth to second. It does not retain the original casting positions: a note about original line five cannot simply be attached to line five of the reversed drawing. Source 1

Complementing all six lines produces Hexagram 8, Water above Earth. All five original solid positions become broken, and the one broken position becomes solid. The result therefore has a solid fifth position and five broken positions. This is an all-line opposition, unlike a single fifth-line change, which gives Hexagram 1. Keep the operation name beside a comparison so that two different routes are not mistaken for one casting record. Source 1 · Source 2

A received Na Jia lookup, not a casting experiment

In the received eight-palace Na Jia arrangement, Hexagram 14 belongs to the Qian palace and is its returning-soul member. The palace sequence is 1, 44, 33, 12, 20, 23, 35, 14. This is a separate classification from the King Wen list: fourteen is not the fourteenth stage of a palace walk, and upper Fire does not make this a Li-palace figure. Use Qian’s Metal as the reference when assigning its six-relative categories. Source 1

The same source places the self-line at position three and the response-line at position six for Hexagram 14. The fifth position praised as the ruler in a literary commentary is therefore not the self-line in this arrangement. These labels answer different questions in different layers of the tradition. Copying the ruler label into the self-line field would move the marker from Jia Chen to Ji Wei and change which record is being examined. Source 1

Assign the lower three positions from Qian’s inner triplet and the upper three from Li’s outer triplet. Read upward: Jia Zi, Jia Yin, Jia Chen, Ji You, Ji Wei and Ji Si. Qian supplies Jia internally but Ren externally; Li supplies Ji in both halves. Consequently the upper half of this particular figure does not receive Ren just because its palace is Qian. Palace membership and trigram-level stem assignment must be looked up separately. Source 1 · Source 2 · Source 3

At position one, Qian’s first inner pair is Jia Zi. The Zi branch is Water; relative to the original Qian palace, Metal generates Water, giving the Offspring category. The solid drawing and the Jia stem are not the inputs to that six-relative calculation. Switching the reference to the visible upper Fire trigram would change the category while leaving the recorded pair untouched, so preserve the palace reference in the record. Source 1 · Source 2

At position two, the pair is Jia Yin and its branch element is Wood. Qian palace Metal controls Wood, so this position is Wealth in this six-relative convention. That category name does not establish a sum of money or connect this hexagram to someone’s Bazi Wealth label. It is a technical relationship between the retained palace element and this particular branch, before a question, date or moving-line state has been evaluated. Source 1 · Source 2

At position three, Jia Chen has an Earth branch. Earth generates the Qian palace Metal, giving Parents; the source’s returning-soul self marker is also at this position. The Parents category and the self marker are separate fields, however: the first follows a five-element relation, while the second follows palace stage. They coincide here without implying that every Parents line is the self-line. Position five supplies a concrete counterexample in the same figure. Source 1 · Source 2

At position four, Li’s first outer pair is Ji You, whose You branch is Metal. Matching the original palace Metal gives Brothers. The name Li describes the upper trigram used to select this pair; it does not replace the palace element. A standalone lookup of Hexagram 50 also has Ji You at position four but classifies it against Li-palace Fire. That is a different standalone record, not a correction to Hexagram 14. Source 1 · Source 2

At position five, the pair is Ji Wei. Wei is Earth, which generates palace Metal, so this is another Parents candidate. It does not share the self marker with position three. A document-related question can therefore produce two category candidates inside Hexagram 14 before any choice between them has been made. The static figure supplies both candidates; it supplies neither the casting day and month nor a license to call the fifth one moving. Source 1 · Source 2

At position six, Ji Si has a Fire branch. Fire controls Qian-palace Metal, giving Officer/Ghost, and the response marker is placed here. This combines a branch-based relationship with a stage-based marker, not a statement that the top position predicts an official, illness or event. The same branch must be interpreted within the recorded question and method. The lookup alone cannot provide that missing context or turn a traditional category into a verified outcome. Source 1 · Source 2

For a recorded first-line change, the related figure is Hexagram 50. Its first pair in a standalone lookup is Xin Chou, Earth. Against Hexagram 14’s retained Qian Metal reference that changed pair is Parents; against Hexagram 50’s own Li Fire palace the identical Earth branch is Offspring. Zengshan Buyi’s Moving Changes chapter retains the original figure’s six-relative reference when annotating changed lines. Label the two operations explicitly rather than silently importing a standalone related-figure category. Source 1 · Source 2

For a recorded fifth-line change, the related figure is Hexagram 1. Its fifth pair is Ren Shen, Metal, whereas the original fifth pair is Ji Wei, Earth. Keeping the original Qian Metal reference changes the fifth position’s category from Parents to Brothers. A whole standalone Hexagram 1 lookup also shows Ren Wu at fourth and Ren Xu at sixth; those extra pairs describe that figure’s outer trigram, not proof that fourth and sixth were moving in the original cast. Source 1 · Source 2

Download all 64 structural rows · Download all 64 Na Jia records

What three useful-line texts do and do not disagree about

Zengshan Buyi first selects the useful category from what is being asked. Its Two Appearances chapter then describes the familiar preference for strong, moving and uninjured candidates, before recording exceptions involving a void or month-broken candidate. With Parents at positions three and five of Hexagram 14, a category lookup has only created a pair of candidates. Neither the chapter’s general rule nor its exceptions can be applied fully without the missing movement and calendar information. Source 1

The inspected seventeenth answer in Bu Shi Zheng Zong also discusses self-line or day-and-month authority and selecting a void or month-broken candidate when that condition carries the indication. On this point it agrees with the inspected Zengshan passage, so there is no basis for inventing a conflict between these two books. The electronic transcription has damaged characters nearby; this summary identifies the location and does not present a silently repaired line as an exact quotation. Source 1

Yi Mao’s Two Appearances chapter states a different screening default: choose an uninjured candidate over an injured one, with its gloss including void, month break, clash and controlling damage; for a moving-and-still pair it prefers the moving candidate. Its wording is narrower evidence than a claim that every later example in the book follows an absolute rule. The useful comparison is the stated default versus the explicit exception passages, not a fabricated contest between three wholly opposed schools. Source 1

For Hexagram 14, changing the question category from documents to money changes the candidate set: Parents gives positions three and five, while Wealth gives position two. This is a category-selection exercise based on the same six assignments, not a historical event or a fresh divination cast. It shows exactly what the lookup can resolve before calendar and movement data are added. It does not decide which candidate governs an actual person’s situation. Source 1 · Source 2

Download the sourced three-text comparison

Sources and limits

• James Legge: Hexagram XIV, judgment, six lines and note — primary translation read in the Sacred Texts archive.
• Legge: Remarks on the Trigrams — traditional symbol reference.
• Our structural and capacity ledger — inputs, six outputs, arithmetic and limitations.

This page keeps inherited text, our derived checks and modern reading prompts distinct. None is a scientifically validated prediction of events. The checker runs locally, has no form for personal details and makes no network request when a position is selected.