Increase — 益

What Is Hexagram 42?

Hexagram 42, Yì (益), Increase, is Wind above and Thunder below, ䷩ — a figure whose name is pure addition. Its judgment is eight characters long without counting the name, 利有攸往，利涉大川: it serves to set out, and it serves to cross the great river. What the figure adds is added by a direction, 損上益下 — the upper reduced so that the lower is supplied.

The word itself is a verb of adding. Kong Yingda's subcommentary, the 疏, defines it as 增足之名, the name for adding to what is already there, and then gives the reason the name attaches from below rather than from above: 下已有矣，而上更益之，明聖人利物之無已也 — the lower already has something, and the upper adds to it still, which is how the text shows that the sage's benefit to things does not run out. Its mirror figure, Hexagram 41, is the same sentence with the direction reversed, 損卦則損下益上，益卦則損上益下, and the 疏 quotes an older reader, 向秀, for the political reading of the pair: 明王之道，志在惠下，故取下謂之損，與下謂之益 — the whole of an enlightened king's way is aimed at what is beneath him, so taking from below is called decrease and giving to below is called increase.

The two figures are one six-stroke figure entered from either end. Turn 益 over and 損 appears; flip every line of 益 against its own kind, yang to yin and yin to yang, and the strokes become 恆, Hexagram 32, Duration. The motion the 彖 names in its first clause is also readable as arithmetic on the figure before it in a different sequence: 否, Hexagram 12, stands as three yielding lines below three firm ones, and setting its top firm line at the bottom produces exactly the six strokes of 益 — one firm line at the first place, two more at the fifth and sixth, nothing firm in between. 損上益下 is not a metaphor for what the figure does. It is what the figure is.

The book's highest verdict, 元吉, stands twice in this figure's judgment and lines — once at the first line and once at the fifth — and the Small Image speaks it again after the first, which puts the phrase on the page three times. No other figure in the sixty-four uses that phrase twice at that level except 損, the one this turns into and out of. Other counts are just as unusual. In the judgment and lines, the words 有孚 stand three times, twice of them in one line; 中行 and 告公 occur twice each, at the third line and again at the fourth; the four characters 十朋之龜 occur once in the whole book outside this figure, at 損's fifth line, where the sentence they belong to is otherwise identical to 益's second line. And the figure contains two 凶, of which only one is a verdict — the other sits inside 凶事, the hard occasion the third line is sent to.

The 序卦 arrives from the figure before it, 損而不已，必益 — a decrease carried on without pause arrives at increase — and hands the sequence straight on with the same warning attached, 益而不已，必決，故受之以夬: an increase that does not stop breaks. The 雜卦 sets the two names inside its largest frame, 損、益，盛衰之始也: Decrease and Increase are where decline and fullness begin. Everything said here about 益 is said under that frame. The figure is a beginning, not a destination.

Trigram Structure

Thunder lies at the bottom and Wind stands above, and the Image's bare statement of the pair, 風雷，益, puts them in the order in which they arrive. The 說卦 reduces each to a single verb, 震，動也。巽，入也 — Thunder is the one that moves, Wind the one that enters — and gives the same pair a body and a family place, 震為足，巽為股; 震一索而得男，故謂之長男；巽一索而得女，故謂之長女. This is the whole figure's cast: the eldest son below, the eldest daughter above, and the two trigrams the 說卦 itself calls the fastest movers in the world, 動萬物者，莫疾乎雷。橈萬物者，莫疾乎風.

Wang Bi reads the pair as a statement about who yields to whom, and his note is the clearest sentence in the figure's commentary on its own name: 震，陽也。巽，陰也。巽非違震者也。處上而巽，不違於下，損上益下之謂也. Thunder is firm, Wind is yielding, and the yielding trigram is not set against the moving one; standing above and still entering, it does not refuse what is below it, and that is what 損上益下 means. The 疏 puts the geometry into one line, 柔損在上，剛動在下，上巽不違於下 — the yielding is reduced above, the firm moves below, and the upper trigram flows along with the lower rather than blocking it. Nothing is transferred in the picture. The direction of the transfer is what the name adds.

The upper trigram supplies the figure's strangest image. 巽 is Wood as well as Wind, 巽為木、為風, and the 彖's clause about crossing water turns on that: 利涉大川，木道乃行. Wang Bi explains the equation with a plainness that makes the line memorable, 木者，以涉大川為常而不溺者也。以益涉難，同乎木也 — wood crosses a great river as its ordinary business and does not drown, and an increase carried into difficulty behaves like wood. The 疏 adds the physical reason, 木體輕浮，以涉大川為常而不溺也. The figure's promise is not that the water will be low. It is that the traveler is the kind of thing that floats.

Where the pair sits among the four primal pairs is worth one more line, because the 說卦's own catalogue separates the two halves. 天地定位，山澤通氣，雷風相薄，水火不相射 — heaven and earth put where they belong, mountain and marsh passing air between them, thunder and wind pressing on each other, water and fire keeping their aim off one another. This figure is built out of the pair in that list that brushes. Thunder and wind press on each other, and the chapter that lists each pair's superlative says of these two, 動萬物者，莫疾乎雷；橈萬物者，莫疾乎風 — nothing moves things faster than thunder, nothing bends them faster than wind. The version this page's 象 opens with, 風雷 rather than 雷風, is therefore worth noticing: the Image names wind first, and the 疏 explains the order as a sequence rather than a list, in the quotation from the 子夏傳 taken up below.

The positions are worth naming, since the figure's own commentary leans on them. Four of the six positions are occupied by their proper kind — the firm line in the first place, the yielding lines in the second and fourth, the firm line in the fifth — and two are not: the third, yielding in a firm place, and the top, firm in a yielding place. The 疏 works from exactly this when it praises the second and fourth lines as 體柔當位, and Wang Bi's note on the third line opens by naming the fault, 以陰居陽. In this figure the lines that are structurally at ease are the ones that receive, and the lines that are out of place are the ones that reach.

The Judgment

益：利有攸往。利涉大川。

Yì: lì yǒu yōu wǎng. Lì shè dà chuān.

Our rendering: Increase: it serves to set out; it serves to cross the great river.

The judgment contains no word of verdict at all — no 亨, no 吉, no 无咎 — only two clauses built on 利, and both of them are about movement. Read clause by clause:

The 彖 restates the name and then works the same statement out clause by clause, and every clause is about where the movement comes from:

彖曰：益，損上益下，民說无疆，自上下下，其道大光。利有攸往，中正有慶。利涉大川，木道乃行。益動而巽，日進无疆。天施地生，其益无方。凡益之道，與時偕行。

The first clause is the definition. The second describes what follows from it, 民說无疆 — the 疏 reads 說 as gladness and the whole phrase as a limit that cannot be reached, 下民歡說，無復疆限 — and the third turns it into an image of downward motion, 自上下下，其道大光. The clause with 中正有慶 is where the 彖 locates the promise of the judgment: 中正有慶 is said of the fifth line, and Wang Bi is explicit about it, 五處中正，自上下下，故有慶也。以中正有慶之德，有攸往也，何適而不利哉 — the ruler's place is both central and correct, it is the place that comes down to what is below it, and that is where the figure's good outcome is seated. The 疏 draws the conclusion the judgment had left implicit, 益之所以利有攸往者，正謂中正有慶故也. Then comes wood, then the figure's engine, 益動而巽，日進无疆.

The clause about movement and yielding is the one worth keeping. The 疏 reads it as a conditional addressed to whoever holds the increase, 若動而驕盈，則彼損無已。若動而卑巽，則進益無疆 — move while proud and full and the loss on the other side will not stop; move while entering and yielding and the gain will not stop either. The same activity, 動, produces opposite results depending on the posture it is performed in, and the difference is not in what is done but in how it is held. Then the 彖 widens the frame to heaven and earth, 天施地生，其益无方 — the 疏 unpacks the four characters as heaven bestowing its breath and earth receiving it and bringing things to life, 天施氣於地，地受氣而化生, and adds that such benefit has no fixed quarters, 無有方所 — and closes with the figure's one piece of caution. Wang Bi's note on it is the hardest sentence in the figure: 益之為用，施未足也。滿而益之，害之道也。故凡益之道，與時偕行也. Increase belongs to what has not filled up yet; pour it into something already full and the harm starts there. The 疏 says the same in the language of practice, 雖施益無方，不可恒用，當應時行之 — the benefit does not have to be measured out, but it does have to be timed.

One small printed oddity is worth recording, since it sits directly under these clauses: the note in the received text that accompanies 天施地生 reads 損下益下, which is not a phrase the book uses — the figure's own compound is 損上益下, and the note reads as a compression or a slip for it. Nothing in the commentary turns on the difference; the passage is listed here so that the strangeness is on the record rather than smoothed over.

Jungian reading. The figure's rule that increase enters where nothing is yet full, and turns to harm where fullness has already arrived, is a statement about a state rather than a quantity, and that is close to how Jung treats what he calls the growth of the personality. What enlarges a person is not an addition to a full structure but room made for what has not yet been admitted: the shadow, the undeveloped function, the tone that was not allowed into the room. The 彖 states the condition twice in different registers — 施未足 and 與時偕行 — and both point the same way. What is added out of its hour does not enlarge the structure; it swells it. The 疏's warning about pride in the middle of the movement belongs here as well: the same act of giving, done from a place that is already full of itself, produces a loss on the other side of the exchange, and the loss is not a punishment but a consequence of the posture.

The Image

象曰：風雷，益；君子以見善則遷，有過則改。

Fēng léi, Yì; jūn zǐ yǐ jiàn shàn zé qiān, yǒu guò zé gǎi.

Our rendering: Wind and thunder: Increase. The noble one therefore moves toward what is good when he sees it, and corrects what is wrong.

Wang Bi's note on it reduces the whole instruction to eight characters, 遷善改過，益莫大焉 — moving toward good and correcting what is wrong: no increase is greater than that. The 疏 explains why the trigram order in the Image is wind first, quoting the 子夏傳 and confirming it with an older reader, 雷以動之，風以散之，萬物皆盈。孟僖亦與此同其意 — thunder sets things in motion and wind scatters what that movement released, and everything comes through full, with the reader's name printed as 孟僖 in this text. The 疏 then gives the sequence a natural year: 如二月啟蟄之後，風以長物；八月收聲之後，風以殘物。風之為益，其在雷後 — after the second month and the waking of the insects the wind lengthens what is growing, after the eighth month and the silencing of the thunder the same wind strips what is left, and the wind's power to benefit lies in its coming after the thunder. Different seasons, same two trigrams, opposite outcomes: this is the 與時偕行 clause of the 彖 in the form of weather. The 疏 closes the note with a reason for choosing this pair out of the six generated trigrams, and it is not Wang Bi's but a borrowing from 何晏: 六子之中，並有益物，猶取雷風者，何晏云：「取其最長可久之義也。」 — every one of the six generated trigrams benefits things, and thunder and wind were chosen because theirs is the longest lasting.

Its two verbs are worth separating, since the 疏 defines them against each other, 遷謂遷徙慕尚，改謂改更懲止 — 遷 is to move house toward something admired, 改 is to correct and stop a thing. The first is imitative and the second is corrective, and the Image puts the imitative one first: the figure's idea of increase is that a person grows by taking up something seen outside themselves and, in the same motion, letting go of some part of what they were. It has an obvious danger built into it, and the danger is the same one the 彖 flags. A model taken up whole and never corrected against is not 遷善 but imitation, and the figure's other half is the corrective.

The pair of images at 損 and 益 make a single ethics when read side by side. 損's Image is 山下有澤，損；君子以懲忿窒欲 — a marsh under the mountain, and the noble one quiets anger and closes off appetite. 益's is the one printed above. The 繫辭's chapter on the nine virtues carries the same division twice, once in its first list, which gives each figure a name, and once in its third, which gives each figure a use: 益，德之裕也 — increase is the widening of virtue — and then 損，以遠害。益，以興利 — the two clauses that name decrease as the way harm is put off and increase as the way profit is opened. The first image names what a person should stop pouring into; the second names what to take up in its place. Neither clause stands on its own, which is why the 雜卦 can call the two together 盛衰之始 and mean it as a description of one mechanism.

Jungian reading. 見善則遷 describes the moment a person finds something outside themselves good and allows it to change their shape, which is what Jung called the way an ego is enlarged — not by reflection alone but by taking in what was previously not oneself and making it one's own. The two verbs in the Image are the safeguard on that process. 遷 without 改 is identification: the admirer borrows a life and calls it growth, and nothing is given up, so nothing is added where it counts. The figure's structure says the same thing from the other side: what the second line receives from outside, 益自外來, still has to be put to work by the one who receives it, which is what the first line's 大作 asks for.

The Lines

初九：利用為大作，元吉，无咎。 (Lì yòng wéi dà zuò, yuán jí, wú jiù.) A great work may be taken in hand: the great good fortune, no blame.

Wang Bi sets up the position before he reads the line, 處益之初，居動之始。體夫剛德，以蒞其事而之乎巽，以斯大作，必獲大功 — at the beginning of an increase, and at the start of movement, a firm line takes the work in hand and moves into the yielding trigram above it, and a great undertaking from that place will achieve a great result. Then comes the condition that makes this line interesting: 夫居下非厚事之地，在卑非任重之處，大作非小功所濟，故元吉，乃得無咎也 — the bottom is not the place for heavy business, the low position is not where weight is carried, and a large undertaking is not brought off by a small result. Only the highest verdict the book gives makes the blame disappear. The 疏 states the reason in plain political terms, 有其才而無其位，得其時而無其處，雖有殊功，人不與也。時人不與，則咎過生焉 — the ability is there and the position is not, the moment is there and the standing is not, and a distinction that nobody credits produces fault out of nothing. Its Small Says names the asymmetry, 元吉无咎，下不厚事也, which the 疏 glosses in six characters, 厚事猶大事也. Read practically: the figure opens with an invitation to do something large from a small place, and the invitation is only safe because the outcome is asked to be exceptional.

六二：或益之，十朋之龜弗克違，永貞吉。王用享于帝，吉。 (Huò yì zhī, shí péng zhī guī fú kè wéi, yǒng zhēn jí. Wáng yòng xiǎng yú dì, jí.) Someone supplies the addition; a tortoise worth ten pairs of cowries cannot turn it aside. Held to over time, correctness is good fortune. The king makes his offering to the High Lord: good fortune.

This line shares its opening with 損's fifth line, and the two are the only places in the sixty-four figures where the four characters 十朋之龜 appear. Wang Bi notes the parallel himself, 同於損卦六五之位, and then explains why the same sentence ends differently in the two figures, 位不當尊，故吉在永貞也 — the wording does not stand in the seat of honor here, so the verdict has to be attached to duration rather than to rank, which is why this version says 永貞吉 where 損 says 元吉. The line's spine is its passivity. Wang Bi's note runs 以柔居中，而得其位。處內履中，居益以沖。益自外來，不召自至，不先不違 — the yielding line is centered and in its proper place, holds itself low inside an increase, and the addition arrives from outside without being summoned, not anticipated and not refused. The 疏 makes the same point by naming the posture, 居益用謙，則物自外來 — hold the increase with modesty and things come to you from beyond. The closing clause about the king's offering has an ancestry of its own, because Wang Bi explains the word 帝 through the 說卦: 帝者，生物之主，興益之宗，出震而齊巽者也 — the High Lord is the master of what lives, the ancestor of everything that increases, the one who comes out in Thunder and is brought level in Wind, which is a direct quotation of the chapter that opens 帝出乎震，齊乎巽. The figure's two trigrams are the two named in that line, and the 疏 completes the reading, 王用此時，以享祭於帝，明靈降福. What the line offers is a picture of receiving well: nothing is reached for, and the thanks are given at the hour they are due.

六三：益之用凶事，无咎。有孚中行，告公用圭。 (Yì zhī yòng xiōng shì, wú jiù. Yǒu fú zhōng xíng, gào gōng yòng guī.) The increase is put to use on hard occasions: no blame. There is trust, and the middle is walked; he announces it to the duke with a jade tablet.

This is the only line in the figure that asks for increase, and the commentary judges the asking twice under two different rules. Wang Bi opens with the fault, 以陰居陽，求益者也，then states the general verdict, 益不外來，己自為之，物所不與，故在謙則戮，救凶則免 — the increase does not come from outside here, the line supplies it to itself, nothing else agrees to it, and so measured by the ordinary standard of modesty the act deserves punishment while measured as a rescue in a disaster it is pardoned. The 疏 puts the two verdicts in one sentence, 若以謙道責之，則理合誅戮。若以救凶原之，則情在可恕, and adds where the line's strength lies in such an hour, 用此以救衰危，則物之所恃. Then Wang Bi ranks the addressees, and the ranking is one of the figure's small exactitudes: 公者，臣之極也。凡事足以施天下，則稱王，次天下之大者，則稱公。六三之才，不足以告王，足以告公 — a duke is the highest of ministers; whoever can spread a matter over everything under heaven is called king, and the next size down is called duke; and the ability of this line is not enough to address a king, but is enough to address a duke. The 疏 adds a warning about turning emergency into method, 告王者宜以文德燮理，使天下人寧，不當恒以救凶，用志褊狹也 — to address a king one should work by ordering things with civil virtue and let the world be quiet; a permanent practice of rescuing disasters narrows the aim. Its Small Says is 益用凶事，固有之也, and the 疏 reads 固有 as holding firmly what has been earned, 明其為救凶，則不可求益；施之凶事，乃得固有其功也: where the purpose is rescue there is nothing to ask for, and put to that use the merit becomes something that stays. This is also the first of the figure's two 凶, and it is not a verdict. It describes the class of occasion the line is for.

六四：中行，告公從。利用為依遷國。 (Zhōng xíng, gào gōng cóng. Lì yòng wéi yī qiān guó.) The middle is walked; he announces it to the duke, and the duke follows. It serves to be what others lean on when a state is moved.

The received text prints 國 here, and one comparison copy gives 邦 as its alternate reading; the two are the same word at different levels of formality, and quotations on this page follow the received 國. The line repeats 中行 and 告公 from the third line and changes their outcome, and the reason is the position. Wang Bi's note works through it carefully, 居益之時，處巽之始，體柔當位，在上應下。卑不窮下，高不處亢，位雖不中，用中行者也 — in an increase, at the beginning of the yielding trigram, soft and in the proper place, above and answering what is below, not so low that it runs out at the bottom and not so high that it reaches the extreme, and although the position is not the central one, this is a line that uses the middle way. Then he asks the rhetorical questions that carry the verdict, 以斯告公，何有不從？以斯依遷，誰有不納也 — announced this way, who does not follow; relied on this way, who does not take you in. The 疏 reads 利用為依遷國 through a historical phrase, 遷國，國之大事，明以中行，雖有大事，而無不利，如周之東遷晉鄭焉依之義也 — a state moving its seat is the largest thing a state does, and 周之東遷晉鄭焉依 is a line from the Zuo Commentary about the Zhou court moving east with the states of Jin and Zheng to lean on; the 疏 is quoting a description of a real migration as the model for this line. Its Small Says is 告公從，以益志也, which the 疏 reads as the purpose of the announcement being what is gained, 既為公所從，其志得益也. Set beside the third line, the pair is one of the figure's clearest lessons: the same middle way spoken from an ordinary position has to be announced and argued for, and spoken from a proper position it is simply followed.

九五：有孚惠心，勿問元吉。有孚惠我德。 (Yǒu fú huì xīn, wù wèn yuán jí. Yǒu fú huì wǒ dé.) Trust and a heart set on benefiting others: there is nothing to ask, and the great good fortune. Trust, and the benefit comes home to my own virtue.

Wang Bi's note on this line is the figure's statement about what the ruler's increase actually is, 得位履尊，為益之主者也。為益之大，莫大於信。為惠之大，莫大於心 — in the proper place and at the honored height, this is the master of the increase; and of all increases none is greater than trust, and of all benefits none is greater than a heart. What follows is a quotation the reader of the Chinese tradition will recognize, 因民所利而利之焉，惠而不費，惠心者也 — benefit them along the lines of what they already find beneficial, and the benefit costs nothing: this is the Analects' description of governing in the chapter on Yao, taken over almost word for word, and applied here to a line of the Zhou Yi. The reading of 勿問 is where the note is most careful, 信以惠心，盡物之願，固不待問而元吉 — trust joined to a heart set on benefit satisfies what things want, so the verdict does not wait on a question. The 疏 specifies that 勿問 is therefore not a prohibition against asking, 不待疑問: the question has become unnecessary rather than forbidden. The second half of the line reverses the direction of the flow, and both Wang Bi and the 疏 insist on the reversal, 以誠惠物，物亦應之 and 我既以信，惠被於物，物亦以信，惠歸於我 — benefit given with trust is answered by trust, and what comes back is called 惠我德, the benefit returning to my own virtue. Its Small Says names the doubled outcome, 有孚惠心，勿問之矣。惠我德，大得志也, and the 疏 reads 大得志 as the largest thing a person can get, 天下皆以信惠歸我，則可以得志於天下. Nothing is asked for on this line, and everything arrives.

上九：莫益之，或擊之，立心勿恆，凶。 (Mò yì zhī, huò jī zhī, lì xīn wù héng, xiōng.) Nobody adds to him; something strikes him. The heart is set with no constancy: misfortune.

The received text prints 恆, and the 繫辭's quotation of this same line prints 恒; the two are the same word written two ways, and quotations on this page follow each text's own spelling. Wang Bi reads the top line as the place where increase has run past its limit, 處益之極，過盈者也。求益無已，心無恒者也。無厭之求，人弗與也 — at the extreme of increase, overfull; asking without end, with no constancy in the heart; and a demand that is never satisfied is not granted by anyone. Then he explains the figure's oddest sentence, 獨唱莫和，是偏辭也。人道惡盈，怨者非一，故曰或擊之也 — singing alone with nobody answering is what 偏辭 means, a statement made to one side only; the way of human beings hates fullness, and the resentful are not one but many, which is why the text says that someone strikes him. The 疏 supplies the reading of 勿 as 無, 勿猶無也，求益無已，是立心無恒者也, and closes with the verdict that gives the line its weight, 無恒之人，必凶咎之所集 — a person with no constancy is where misfortune and fault collect.

This line is also the only one of the six that the 繫辭 takes up on its own and comments on, and what it says is worth the whole page. 君子安其身而後動，易其心而後語，定其交而後求 — the noble one settles his own footing before he moves, calms his own mind before he speaks, and establishes the relation before he asks; then the three consequences, 危以動，則民不與也。懼以語，則民不應也。无交而求，則民不與也 — move from a precarious place and nobody joins you, speak out of fear and nobody answers, ask where no relation has been established and nobody gives; and the sentence that lands on the line, 莫之與，則傷之者至矣。易曰：莫益之，或擊之。立心勿恒，凶. When nobody is with you, the ones who do you harm arrive. The I Ching's own commentary on its own top line is thus an account of a demand made outside any relationship. Set beside 損's top line, which ends by stopping the flow upward and receiving what comes home to it, 益's top line is the one figure's worth of warning about what happens when the direction of giving is reversed into taking and never stops. The 序卦's forward sentence names the same edge, 益而不已，必決.

Daily Life

This is the figure of a better instrument rather than a bigger effort, and the book says so in the only place it attaches 益 to a specific human invention. The 繫辭's account of the tools of the old kings runs through the figures each tool was taken from, and for the plow it names this one: 包犧氏沒，神農氏作，斲木為耜，揉木為耒，耒耨之利，以教天下，蓋取諸益 — the Divine Farmer cut wood for the spade and bent wood for the handle, and the benefit of the plow, taught to everyone under heaven, was taken from Increase. A tool that makes the same ground yield more is the figure's canonical application. Nothing about it requires the farmer to work harder or the field to be larger. What changed is that a wooden thing was cut and bent so that the work returns more than it costs, and the 彖's 木道乃行 is the same idea stated about a river crossing: what carries you is the shape of what you are riding, not the size of the effort you make.

Where it goes wrong is stated twice in the lines and once in the 彖, and the three failures are different in kind. The first is the ordinary one of asking: the third line is the figure's only asker, and it is permitted only because the occasion is a disaster, with the 疏 warning that a rescue made into a method narrows the person doing it. The second is the failure to measure the hour. The 彖's closing line says the addition belongs to what has not yet filled, 施未足, and that adding to fullness is the road to harm; applied to work, that is the project that is topped up with resources it has no room to use, the conversation continued past the point where anything is being said, the help given to someone who has already filled their own cup. The third is the top line's, and it is the gravest because it is the least visible from inside: a demand that has been repeated long enough to become an identity. The 繫辭's expansion of that line is a description of someone who asks before any relation exists, and its claim is not that the ask is punished but that the ask has nothing to stand on — 无交而求，則民不與也.

What the figure recommends in place of those three is the posture of its second and fifth lines. The second holds the increase low inside itself — 居益用謙 is the 疏's phrase for the posture — and the addition arrives from outside on its own; the fifth gives what benefits and does not ask, and what returns is called its own virtue. Between them sits the Image's instruction, which is the part of this figure a person can act on today: 見善則遷，有過則改 — when something good is seen, move toward it; when something wrong is found, correct it. The 疏's pair of definitions makes the instruction precise, 遷謂遷徙慕尚，改謂改更懲止: one verb is about what to take up and one about what to put down, and the figure's understanding of increase requires both at once. Nothing is being added to a person who only loses what was wrong; nothing is being changed in one who only admires what is good. The pair is what the 雜卦 meant by 盛衰之始.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does Hexagram 42 mean in one sentence?

That the upper is being reduced so that the lower can be supplied, 損上益下, and that everything good in the figure follows from that direction being kept: the judgment promises two kinds of passage and nothing else, 利有攸往，利涉大川, the 彖 seats the good outcome at the ruler's central and correct place, 中正有慶, and the one piece of caution in the entire figure is about timing, 益之為用，施未足也。滿而益之，害之道也. The word 益 itself is defined by the 疏 as 增足之名, the name for adding to what is already there.

Increase and Decrease are the same six strokes. What actually differs?

The direction of the transfer, and the direction is the whole of the difference. 損 is 損下益上, the lower reduced to supply the upper; 益 is 損上益下, the upper reduced to supply the lower, and Wang Bi's note on the name says the upper trigram here is one that 不違於下, does not refuse what is below it. The pair is close enough that one sentence appears in both figures almost unchanged: 損's fifth line and 益's second are the only two places in the sixty-four where the characters 十朋之龜 occur, and Wang Bi points at the parallel himself, 同於損卦六五之位, before explaining why the verdicts differ — 位不當尊，故吉在永貞也, the same words stand in a lower seat here, so the good outcome has to be attached to duration rather than to rank. Turn this figure over and it is that one; the 雜卦 joins the two names in a single phrase, 損、益，盛衰之始也.

Why does the top line end in misfortune when the rest of the figure is favorable?

Because the increase has run past full. Wang Bi's note reads the position rather than the person, 處益之極，過盈者也。求益無已，心無恒者也。無厭之求，人弗與也 — at the extreme of increase, overfull, asking without end, with no constancy in the heart; and a demand that never stops is granted by nobody. The 繫辭 gives the line its own commentary and traces the mechanism, 定其交而後求…无交而求，則民不與也。莫之與，則傷之者至矣 — establish the relation before you ask; ask where no relation exists and nobody gives; and when nobody is with you, the ones who do you harm arrive. The 序卦 states the same edge as a rule of the sequence, 益而不已，必決.

What does 勿問 in the fifth line ask, and what does the second line's offering have to do with it?

勿問 is not a ban on asking. Wang Bi reads it as a consequence, 信以惠心，盡物之願，固不待問而元吉 — trust joined to a heart set on benefit satisfies what things want, so the verdict does not wait on a question — and the 疏 makes the same point with two words, 不待疑問: the question has become unnecessary. What the line describes instead is a circulation, 我既以信，惠被於物，物亦以信，惠歸於我, benefit given with trust answered by trust, returning as 惠我德. The second line's 王用享于帝 is the ritual expression of the same posture, and Wang Bi explains the word 帝 out of the 說卦, 帝者，生物之主，興益之宗，出震而齊巽者也, the one who comes out in Thunder and is brought level in Wind — the two trigrams this figure is made of.

The I Ching is a mirror for reflection, not a prediction machine.