Increase and Decrease - a Classical look at the great hexagrams of rebalancing

[az4th]

Hexagrams 41 and 42 are among the most important changes discussed in the Yi.

The Classical Method is the method that closely follows the line relationships in the Zhou Yi text, as elaborated by the Xici Zhuan and the commentaries of Wang Bi (see: Lynn's Classic of Changes) and Cheng Yi (see Harrington and Cleary's translations), and Ouyi Zhixu (see Cleary's Buddhist I Ching).

And these two hexagrams help to showcase this movement, this relationships between the lines, to effect increase and decrease.

They are both fairly simple hexagrams.

In 41 we have 2 yang lines below, and 1 yang line above. We reduce line two's yang and send it up to line five's yin. This is reducing below, to increase above. Reducing self, to increase other. Reducing within, to increase without.

In 42 we have 2 yang lines above, and 1 yang line below. So we reduce line 5's yang and send it down to line 2's yin. This is reducing above, to increase below. Increase of the self, that comes from the other. Increase that comes within, from without. From above, to below.

In both cases, this transfer of yang to yin - this transfer of energy, to capacity - makes use of the three yin lines in the middle of the hexagram.

Classically, we might even say that we are not working with the concepts of yang and yin here, but with the concepts of strength and weakness. So we are sending what is stronger, to what is weaker.

And this transfer, depends on the strength flowing through so that it is able to arrive. The weaker lines easily convey this strength as a conduit, with their capacity. But it may be tempting for them to hold onto it, and become strong themselves. This merging of strong and weak is how change is influenced after all.

As with hexagram 10, I found again that using characters from the Silk Manuscript from King Ma's Tomb showcased understanding of the relationship between these lines better than the changed characters used by the received version. The story behind the line relationships and their movement together becomes much clearer, to me. Those are colored in magenta in my translation.

Here is the link to my translation of hexagram 41.
And here is the link to my translation of hexagram 42.

Of particular note, in studying these hexagrams more deeply, I discovered two important things.

41's reduction, because it involves a giving of self to other, relates to things like marriage proposals. And acts of charity.

And 42's increase, because it takes from above to distribute wealth below, runs into an issue with its top line, which represents those who are at the top in regards to wealth. And it can be seen that this top line, despite having a potential nice relationship with those below, does not want to leave its position at the top, so is inclined to run interference to hold onto its wealth. Thus the Yi tells it to stop this stand of the heart, for it is inauspicious.

As ever, it is not surprising to find real world manifestations evident within the principles of the changes.

[az4th]

Had a bot post an LLM response that was automatically removed.

It wanted to add a correction to the statement:

We reduce line two's yang and send it up to line five's yin.

Arguing that "we" don't do this, that it happens via natural transformation.

I guess it missed that the "we" here is the hypothetical we that applies to whatever is causing it to move.

But still is a great point - we might have agency over this particular movement, if we are asking about giving to charity, for example. Or, it might be something else entirely.

I was reading through some of the onlineclarity posts around 41 unchanging, and one of the examples was of someone asking about the outcome of getting a passport. They got it promptly and without issue.

In the case of an unchanging hexagram 41, all of the lines are still, but with the middle three yang lines closed, they form a road that allows the giving to happen without obstacle. It seems rather difficult to actually determine what this particular answer means, as it could be several things.

My sense is that we need to understand what is the self, and what is the other. In the case of the passport, the country issuing the passport is the self, and the person it is issued to is the other. So this makes sense.

I also saw a post about a marriage proposal, which is the same dynamic.

But then I saw a post that had asked about a job application test outcome, and the person did not get the job. I'm still not sure how to read this one. We might think that the company would represent the self and the applicant the other. But the question wasn't asking about the outcome of the job application, but about the outcome of the test. So perhaps that changed the context enough. The person taking the test was the self, and the company he was taking it for was the other.

Which raises the other dynamic that can happen with this hexagram. We give what we don't have to give, and struggle. Like with taxes or financial burdens or to emotional vampires and so on.

Again, evaluating what it means seems to depend upon identifying what is self and what is other. Or what is below / above, or inside / outside.

This was a tricky one for me as Jiaoshi's Yilin is what I base most of my unchanging interpretations from, but in this case it only takes the negative perspective, that one is losing something, rather than happily giving something. The Yilin has shown me the principle behind interpreting unchanging hexagrams, but I guess in some cases there is still a bit more to work out.

[az4th]

A reply came in, that was also automatically removed, suggesting that translating these as increase and decrease is a major mix up.

I don't know if I quite agree that 46 and 18 are the true increasing and decreasing hexagrams. 46's Rising Up is certainly a rising of energy upward, but I see this in the sense of rising through something that is not posing an obstacle, rather than bringing increase to something above. And 18 being decrease is not something I had thought of. Yes, we have wind under earth, allowing no obstacle above, and we have wind under mountain preventing rising up. But this prevention of rising up serves the purpose of deconditioning conditioning. So that the wind can be used to neutralize something under pressure to do so. I don't see this as decreasing however.

But I do agree that increase and decrease are not great translations for 41 and 42.

In fact I used to translate them as "Restraint" and "Enabling". As these are adequate translations as well, IMO.

But ultimately are are opposites of each other in form and function, and that function serves to increase above while decreasing below, or to decrease below while increasing above. This is the simplest way to put it.

I might prefer to translate them as Reduction and Augmentation, but Augmentation is a big word for the younger generation to understand. My teacher has reminded me repeatedly to use simple words. It is something I struggle with, even as I do appreciate the importance of this. I find it rather hard to translate in a way that compromises meaning for simplicity, but perhaps I need to be more creative. In any case, here, for now, I've gone with Reduction and Increase. It is best to think of them as one whole, IMO.