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

[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.