The master said, “Do not listen with your ears but with your mind. Do not listen with your mind, but listen with your vital force. Ordinary hearing does not go beyond the ears; the mind does not go beyond its symbols. Your vital force is not wanting but waiting. Life brings together all that is void of itself. Be empty ~ that is all. Thus you can master things and not be injured by them.”
HEXAGRAM NUMBER TWENTY-SIX –
CONTROLLED POWER
Other titles: The Taming Power of the Great, The Great Nourisher, Taming the Great Powers, Great Accumulating, Great Accumulation, Great Storage, Nurturance of the Great, Great Buildup, Restraint of the Great, Restraint by the Strong, Potential Energy, The Great Taming Force, Energy Under Control, Power Restrained, Sublimation, Latent Power
Reading at a Glance: True power need not be demonstrated as Creative energy is restrained beneath the mountain of Keeping Still. Ta Ch’u focuses on the power of silence and stillness. While others are running around demonstrating their power, one who is strong does not need to prove anything.
Judgment
Legge: Controlled Power means being firm and correct. If its subject doesn’t enjoy his family revenues at the expense of public service, there will be good fortune. It will be advantageous to cross the great stream.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The Taming Power of the Great. Perseverance furthers. Not eating at home brings good fortune. It furthers one to cross the great water.
Blofeld: The Great Nourisher favors righteous persistence. Good fortune results from not eating at home. It is a favorable time for crossing the great river (sea). [I.e., going on a long journey, perhaps abroad.]
Liu: Taming the Great Powers. Persistence benefits. Not eating at home is good fortune. It is of benefit to cross the great water.
Ritsema/Karcher: Great Accumulating. Harvesting Trial. Not dwelling, taking in. Significant. Harvesting: wading the Great River. [This hexagram describes your situation as an overriding concern defining what is valuable. It emphasizes that bringing the variety of things under the control of this central idea is the adequate way to handle it…]
Shaughnessy: Great Storage: Beneficial to determine; not eating at home is auspicious; beneficial to ford the great river.
Cleary (1): In Nurturance of the Great, it is beneficial to be chaste. It is good not to eat at home; it is beneficial to cross great rivers. [This hexagram represents incubation nurturing the spiritual embryo. On this path, it is beneficial to strengthen still, not use strength. Therefore it says: “it is beneficial to be chaste.” Chastity here means quietude. Stilling strength is nurturing strength. It is good to be still, not active – if one is still, this preserves strength; if one is active, it damages strength. This is the work referred to as “nine years facing a wall.”]
Cleary (2): Great Buildup is beneficial if correct, etc.
Wu: Restraint of the Great indicates prosperity and perseverance. It will be auspicious not to have meals at home. It will be advantageous to cross the big river. [The character chu in the present context has two meanings: one is to accumulate and the other to restrain.]
Meditation: Awareness of Being Is Happiness Itself
Find yourself first as the witnessing presence of awareness in the background of experience. Recognize yourself as that and be that knowingly. 'I' is the name we give to the knowing, aware, perceptual element of the experience. Simply know to be; be aware of being. Awareness of being is happiness itself. Awareness has no form but assumes all forms of experience. Why do I believe that I am a temporary, finite separate self and suffer? This infinite awareness must seem to become a finite mind. The infinite cannot know the finite directly, so must do so through the agency of the mind. The faculties of perception and thought are the means by which the one appears as many. You, finite mind, are the localized activity through which infinite awareness is able to actualize a segment of its infinite potential in form. As such, the finite mind is the instrument of creativity, of love. This meditation has been taken from Rupert's five-day retreat at home in February 2021.
