Six Doors · No. 41
第41卦 损 Sǔn · Decrease
Essence: Give from the surface to strengthen the core.
I
Judgment
Resources are contracting, and that need not be bad news. Cut the elaborate down to the essential: lower the outward display and raise the inward sincerity—two plain bowls are enough for a solemn offering. What matters is that the reduction is chosen and honest, not merely suffered.
II
Trigrams
Upper
艮 Mountain
Lower
兑 Lake
III
The lines
- Line 1Finish your own task and hurry to help, but weigh carefully how much of yourself to give.
- Line 2Serve others without diminishing yourself; staying true to your own position is the real contribution—campaigns of self-sacrifice miscarry.
- Line 3Three traveling together lose one to friction; one traveling alone finds a true companion.
- Line 4Cut away your own faults quickly—the sooner the correction, the sooner the joy it brings.
- Line 5A blessing arrives too great to decline—the natural return on sincerity long invested.
- Line 6To enrich others without depleting yourself draws a following far beyond your own house.
IV
All the doors
Every single-step transition available from where you stand.
- Line 14 蒙 · Youthful Folly
Inexperience seeks its teacher; ask once, in earnest.
- Line 227 颐 · Nourishment
Watch what you feed, and what you let feed you.
- Line 326 大畜 · Great Taming
Great power held in check; stored force deepens into skill.
- Line 438 睽 · Opposition
Estranged yet related; work the small common ground.
- Line 561 中孚 · Inner Truth
Truth from the center reaches even the unreachable.
- Line 619 临 · Approach
The rising tide approaches; use it, knowing it turns.
V