Hexagram 42, Yì (Increase): Wind, Thunder, and the Rising Current

Thunder stirs in the low place and wind moves across the high one, and in Hexagram 42, 益 Yì, Increase the two are read as forces that quicken each other — wind spreads what thunder rouses, thunder drives what wind carries, so that each makes the other larger. (This Yì, fourth tone, is a different figure from Hexagram 27, 頤 Yí, second tone; the number keeps them apart.) The upper trigram is ☴, wind, and the lower is ☳, thunder — motion amplifying motion. But the name points past the weather to something the figure cares about far more: where growth comes from, and which direction a gift has to travel to actually enlarge the world.

Give from the top, and the bottom grows

The founding sense the tradition attaches to Yì is decrease above, increase below: take a measure off the high place and let it grow in the low one. This is the whole secret of the hexagram, and it is why Increase is not simply about gaining. The judgment describes a rare alignment — those above are willing to give ground, those below are being nourished, and the whole system rides a rising current. Windows like this open seldom and do not stay open, which is why the judgment names this the moment to launch the great undertaking and cross the difficult passage. But the counsel attached is easy to miss under the good news: act decisively, and share the gains downward as you go. Increase that hoards at the top stops being increase. The essence this instrument gives the figure states the mechanism plainly — those above give, and everything below grows — and the brightness of the way, in the old commentary, is exactly that downward flow.

The six lines, from ample backing to the empty taker

Read from the bottom up, Yì's lines trace the life of a rising season from its first strength to the one posture that forfeits it:

• First line — ample backing. The support you have received is substantial; the counsel is to spend it on a genuinely great undertaking rather than fritter it on small things. A large gift asks for a large use.
• Second line — help that cannot be refused. Aid arrives that you could not turn away if you tried; only sustained integrity makes you fit to hold it. The blessing is real, but it tests whether you can stay upright underneath it.
• Third line — even adversity enriches. When you stay centered and your good faith is plain to see, even hard events become material for growth. This is Increase at its most counterintuitive: the rising current can run through difficulty without being stopped by it.
• Fourth line — the trusted intermediary. Standing in the middle as the one whose counsel is followed, you can be relied on for something as weighty as moving the capital. Increase here flows through a person others trust to carry it.
• Fifth line — the kind heart. A generous intent backed by real sincerity needs no divination to confirm its outcome; the kindness comes back in kind. This is the hexagram's most fortunate line, and it locates the source of increase in genuine good will rather than clever positioning.
• Top line — the one who only takes. The figure's sole warning, and its sharpest: the person who receives without ever giving finds that no one adds to him — someone strikes at him instead, for a heart without constancy invites misfortune. At the very top of a rising season, refusing to pass the increase downward turns it into loss.

The same transfer, read from the other end

Yì is Hexagram 41, 損 Sǔn, Decrease turned upside down — the two are an inverse pair, and neither is fully legible without the other. What looks like two opposite fortunes is one movement of substance seen from its two ends: stand where the measure is subtracted and the figure reads as Decrease; stand where it lands and grows and the same measure reads as Increase. This is why the hexagrams keep swapping the identical phrase — decrease above, increase below — with only the direction reversed. Yì's opposite works on a different rule: flip every line instead of the whole column and Increase becomes Hexagram 32, 恒 Héng, Duration, where wind and thunder trade places and the theme shifts from a rising windfall to the constancy that outlasts any single season. The inverse teaches you to watch the direction of a gift; the opposite teaches you what those same two trigrams say when they are asked about lasting rather than gaining.

When Increase comes up

A still Yì, cast with no moving lines, usually names a season rather than a promise: a window is open, support is flowing, and the work is to use it well and to pass some of it on rather than dam it at your own level. Ask what large undertaking the moment is actually favoring, and where you are positioned in the flow — receiving from above, or in a place to let increase run past you to someone below. If lines are moving, let each refine the reading: the first line asks whether your use is large enough for the backing, the fifth blesses plain good will, the top line warns against becoming the taker who keeps everything. When several lines move, weigh rather than average them, as the changing-lines guide explains. And keep the register steady throughout — the figure is arranging your attention, not forecasting a profit. Increase does not guarantee that the window pays out; it offers the rising current as something to read honestly, including the question of which way you are letting it flow.

When a real opening is in front of you — a resource arriving, a chance widening, a season that seems to be turning your way — bring it to the Six Doors and see whether the figure asks you to launch, to receive, or to pass the increase along.