I Ching Hexagram 41: Decrease - Meaning, Changing Lines and Guidance
By DailyDestiny Editorial Team
Do you sense you are carrying more than you can hold? Hexagram 41, Decrease (Sun), is Lake under Mountain: give something up on purpose so what matters can be supported. The two small bowls, the Image and all six lines.
On this page
What does I Ching Hexagram 41, Decrease, mean?
Imagine you are looking at your calendar, or your bank app, or the list of things you said yes to last spring. Every one of them made sense at the time. Together they are quietly crushing you, and you know something has to go before something breaks.
The short answer: Hexagram 41, Decrease, means giving something up on purpose so that something more important can be supported. It is not the hexagram of being robbed. It is the hexagram of choosing the cut yourself, early, and honestly.
The Chinese name is Sun, a character carrying the sense of reducing, diminishing or taking away. Hexagram 41 treats that reduction as a working method, not a misfortune.
The classical Tuan commentary gives the reduction a direction: diminishing the lower to augment the upper. Whatever leaves one place is arriving somewhere else, not evaporating.
Two ideas run through the whole text. First, sincerity outranks scale, which is why the Judgement permits a sacrifice of two small bowls. Second, whoever does the decreasing should count the cost falling on other people. Hexagram 41 approves of austerity with a purpose, and has nothing good to say about austerity performed for an audience.
Hexagram 41 sits at a hinge in the King Wen order. It follows Hexagram 40, Deliverance, where a tension finally breaks. The traditional Sequence commentary explains that relief costs something, so Decrease follows.
That placement shapes the reading. Hexagram 41 is what you do after a crisis passes, when emergency spending, borrowed help and temporary arrangements have to be unwound.
The received Zagua commentary pairs Sun and Yi, Decrease and Increase, calling them the beginnings of flourishing and decline. That puts Hexagram 41 at the start of an upswing, not the end of a good run.
The Tuan text adds a note on timing: the two bowls belong to their proper time, and decreasing the firm to increase the yielding has its season. That keeps Hexagram 41 from hardening into permanent thrift. The reduction answers a particular moment and ends when the moment does.
Read that way, Decrease is closer to a controlled fast than to poverty. Or think of pruning a rose bush: it looks like loss in March and like abundance in June.
Is Hexagram 41, Decrease, a negative hexagram in the I Ching?
No. Its Judgement promises supreme good fortune and freedom from blame when reduction is joined to sincerity, and it says it furthers one to undertake something.
It turns unfavorable only when the cutting is done resentfully, hidden from the people it affects, or aimed at the wrong thing.
What is the Chinese name of I Ching Hexagram 41?
It is Sun, which English editions title Decrease and translators also render as Diminishing or Reduction. Do not confuse it with Xun, the Wind trigram.
Sun covers both the act of reducing and the thing given up.
What single keyword captures the Hexagram 41 meaning?
Trimming. Hexagram 41 does not describe collapse or renouncing the world. It describes removing weight from a structure so the structure keeps standing.
That is why translators reach for pruning, retrenchment and simplification when summarizing Sun.
Which trigrams form Hexagram 41, and why does Lake under Mountain produce Decrease?
If you have ever set yourself a spending limit instead of swearing off treats forever, you already understand how these two trigrams work together.
Hexagram 41 is Gen, Keeping Still, Mountain, above Dui, the Joyous, Lake, below. From the bottom the lines run solid, solid, broken, broken, broken, solid.
The meaning comes from what a lake and a mountain do to each other. Water at the foot of a mountain erodes the base, quietly removing material from the thing above it. The mountain bears down and confines the water so it cannot spread. Each reduces the other, and neither reduction is violent.
Dui is the trigram of pleasure, appetite and the mouth, so what sits underneath is desire. Gen is the trigram of stopping, the boundary that does not move. Placing Gen over Dui sets a fixed limit on top of appetite.
That is why Hexagram 41 reads as self-restraint rather than deprivation imposed from outside. The lake is not drained. It is held at a level. Nothing is destroyed. Something is contained.
Line structure gives a second, more technical explanation. Hexagram 41 is read as derived from Hexagram 11, Peace, where three solid lines sit under three broken lines. Move the solid line from the third place of Peace up to the top and Hexagram 41 appears. The lower trigram loses a yang line and the upper trigram gains one.
That is what the Tuan commentary means by diminishing the lower to augment the upper. It also explains the faint note of unfairness the text keeps addressing. Something strong has been taken from the base and given to the top, and the lines spend much of their space managing that imbalance.
In practice, Gen over Dui tells you where the restraint should sit. Do not attack the pleasure itself. Put a ceiling above it. Hexagram 41 favors a limit on spending over a vow of poverty.
What is the trigram order in Hexagram 41, Decrease?
Gen, Mountain, is the upper trigram and Dui, Lake, is the lower trigram, which is why the image is the lake at the foot of the mountain.
Reverse the order and you get a different figure: Dui over Gen is Hexagram 31, Influence, not Hexagram 41.
Why is Dui, the Lake, the trigram reduced in Hexagram 41?
Because it holds the lower position, and the Tuan commentary says Decrease diminishes the lower to augment the upper.
Dui also governs appetite and enjoyment, which makes it the natural candidate for trimming when a situation needs lightening.
How do the six lines of Hexagram 41 read from bottom to top?
Solid, solid, broken, broken, broken, solid. Two yang lines form the base, Dui is completed by a broken third line, then two more broken lines, then a single yang line at the top.
Only three lines are yang, and the top one received what the base gave up.
What does the Judgement of Hexagram 41, Decrease, say?
If you are embarrassed that what you can offer right now is smaller than it used to be, the Judgement has something tender to tell you.
It says Decrease combined with sincerity brings supreme good fortune without blame, that one may be persevering in this, and that it furthers one to undertake something. Then it asks how this is to be carried out, and answers: one may use two small bowls for the sacrifice.
Every clause does work.
Sincerity is the condition. The reduction only pays if you are honest about why.
Perseverance is permitted. This is not a one-day gesture but a policy you can hold.
Undertake something. This is what people most often miss. Hexagram 41 does not tell you to stop and wait. It tells you to cut and then move.
Two small bowls. Ritual offerings were expected to be generous, and Hexagram 41 authorizes a stripped-down version, accepted because what is measured is the intent behind it.
As guidance: a smaller contribution given openly beats a large one financed by strain or pretense.
The Tuan commentary expands the two bowls with a remark about timing: the two bowls should have their time, and decreasing the firm and increasing the yielding also has its time.
This is the strongest safeguard in Hexagram 41. Without it, the hexagram could be read as endorsing permanent minimalism. The lean offering is right for a lean season, and when the season turns, so does the right scale.
A second detail matters. The Judgement never names the amount as the problem. It asks how the decrease is carried out, which makes Hexagram 41 a hexagram about method.
The answer is to choose one clean, visible reduction and declare it, rather than shaving a little from everything and hoping nobody notices. Two small bowls are conspicuous. They announce the new scale instead of disguising it, and that openness is what the sincerity clause protects. It is the difference between telling friends you are hosting a simple potluck this year and quietly serving less food while pretending nothing changed.
What does sincerity mean in the Judgement of Hexagram 41?
It means the reduction is genuine and openly acknowledged, not performed.
If you cut back while implying you could easily afford more, you have not met the condition Hexagram 41 attaches to its promise of good fortune.
Does the Judgement of Hexagram 41 allow you to start new projects?
Yes. It says it furthers one to undertake something, so Decrease is compatible with launching.
The order matters: trim first, then commit the freed capacity. Hexagram 41 does not treat reduction as a reason to postpone action.
Why does the Judgement of Hexagram 41 mention a sacrifice?
Because a ritual offering was the clearest example of a cost that could not be skipped but could be scaled.
Naming two small bowls shows the obligation honored at reduced size.
What is the Image of Hexagram 41, Decrease, and what does it ask of you?
Before you cut a single expense or commitment, this Image asks you to look at something closer to home: your own temper.
It reads: at the foot of the mountain lies the lake; thus the superior person controls anger and restrains the instincts.
It is one of the most personal Images in the book, turning inward before saying anything about resources. Anger and appetite are the two things named for decrease, and both come straight from the trigrams. Dui, the Lake, is pleasure and craving, the part of you that wants more. Gen, the Mountain, is stopping, so anger becomes the thing to check and hold.
So the first item on the reduction list is not money or obligations. It is your own reactivity.
Practitioners read this as a diagnostic order. Before cutting an expense or ending a commitment, ask whether irritation is driving the cut, because a reduction made while angry removes the wrong thing. Hexagram 41 wants the cut made from a settled state, and the mountain over the lake is the picture of that state: weight resting on desire without smashing it.
The two verbs in the Image are not identical, and translations keep the difference.
Anger is controlled or checked, treated as a flare to catch in the moment. Instincts or desires are restrained, which implies ongoing containment rather than a single interception.
That gives you two distinct practices. One is fast and situational: do not send the message while the heat is on you. The other is slow and structural: set the ceiling, then live under it. Both reduce something that belongs to you, not to somebody else, since Hexagram 41 keeps steering you toward reductions you control.
There is a further reason the Image lands on anger. When the lower has been diminished to augment the upper, resentment is the predictable emotion, because whoever absorbed the cut has a grievance available.
Hexagram 41 heads that off by making the grievance itself the next thing to manage. Resentment carried forward spends more of your resources than the original reduction did, like paying interest on a debt you already settled.
Why does the Image of Hexagram 41 single out anger?
Because it is the cost most easily overlooked in a decrease. When something has been taken from the base to supply the top, the person who gave it up carries a grievance.
Hexagram 41 makes that grievance the next thing to reduce.
What does the lake at the foot of the mountain describe in Hexagram 41?
Mutual wearing away. The water erodes the mountain's base while the mountain confines the water, so each holds the other down.
It pictures the steady, undramatic reduction Hexagram 41 recommends for any cut.
Does the Image of Hexagram 41 apply to physical appetite?
Yes. The Image restrains the instincts, and Dui, the trigram of the mouth and of pleasure, sits directly beneath the mountain.
Readers apply Hexagram 41 to eating and consumption questions, where its guidance is a fixed ceiling held calmly rather than an aggressive purge.
What do the six Hexagram 41 changing lines mean individually?
If you drew changing lines, each one is a different way of letting something go, and together they move from helping others to being helped yourself.
Nine at the beginning: going quickly when your own tasks are finished is without blame, but you must consider how much you may decrease others. You will feel this one when you rush to help a friend and realise your help is costing them too.
Nine in the second place: perseverance furthers; undertaking something brings misfortune; without decreasing oneself one can bring increase to others. This is the moment you notice you are about to give away the last of your own reserves.
Six in the third place: when three people journey together their number decreases by one; one journeying alone finds a companion. You will recognise it in any trio that has started to feel crowded.
Six in the fourth place: if a person decreases their faults, the other hastens to come and rejoice, without blame. It shows up when you finally drop the habit everyone has been too polite to mention.
Six in the fifth place: someone does indeed increase him; ten pairs of tortoises cannot oppose it; supreme good fortune. Help arrives that you did not have to argue for.
Nine at the top: being increased without depriving others is without blame; perseverance brings good fortune; it furthers one to undertake something; one obtains servants but no longer has a separate home. This is the season when you gain and nobody else has to lose.
The turn happens at six in the fourth place, and it changes what you are being asked to reduce.
The three lower lines deal with material and effort: how fast to help, how much of yourself to spend, how many people the venture can carry. From the fourth line up, the subject shifts to character and receiving.
Line four decreases faults, not assets, and the other comes gladly. Line five receives support so certain that consultation cannot contradict it. Line six is increased without anyone being stripped, resolving the imbalance the hexagram opened with.
That progression is the argument of Hexagram 41 in miniature: reduce your obligations, then reduce your defects, and the increase arrives on its own.
Two lines carry warnings, and both concern proportion. Nine at the beginning warns against generosity that drains the person you are helping. Nine in the second warns against emptying yourself, which is the most common way people misapply Decrease. Giving is good. Giving until there is no you left is not.
What does nine in the second place of Hexagram 41 warn against?
Giving yourself away. It says undertaking something brings misfortune and that one increases others without decreasing oneself, which stops Decrease from being read as self-erasure.
Changing, it produces Hexagram 27, The Corners of the Mouth, the hexagram of nourishment.
What does the three travelers line in Hexagram 41 mean?
Six in the third place says three journeying together lose one, while one journeying alone finds a companion. It is the arithmetic of partnership: a crowded arrangement sheds a member, a solitary person attracts one.
Changing, it gives Hexagram 26, The Taming Power of the Great, so the smaller unit holds more concentrated strength.
Why is nine at the top the resolution of Hexagram 41?
Because it describes increase gained without depriving anyone, which cancels the imbalance created when the lower was diminished to augment the upper.
It grants good fortune and adds that one gains helpers but no longer keeps a separate household. Changing, it gives Hexagram 19, Approach.
What are the nuclear and opposite hexagrams of Hexagram 41, Decrease?
If this hexagram feels like nothing but loss to you right now, the figures hidden inside and around it tell a much more hopeful story.
The nuclear hexagram: lines two, three and four form Zhen, Thunder, and lines three, four and five form Kun, Earth. Earth over Thunder is Hexagram 24, Return. Return is the hexagram of the turning point, the single yang line reappearing at the bottom after decline. It says the inside of Decrease is a recovery already in progress, which is why practitioners refuse to read Hexagram 41 as a downward story.
The opposite hexagram: invert every line and you get Hexagram 31, Influence, with Mountain below and Lake above. That reversal shows what Decrease holds back: attraction without a ceiling.
The inverse partner: turn the figure upside down and you get Hexagram 42, Increase.
Between Return, Influence and Increase, Hexagram 41 is surrounded by figures of renewal. None of them are figures of ruin.
The nuclear Return is what experienced readers reach for when someone receives Hexagram 41 in a genuinely lean period and hears only bad news.
Hexagram 24 describes the solstice moment when the light comes back. It says friends arrive without blame and the movement returns on schedule. Finding that hidden inside Decrease reframes everything. The reduction is not the end of a cycle but the quiet bottom of one, like the shortest day of the year, after which every day is a little longer.
It also explains the confidence of the Judgement, which promises supreme good fortune to a hexagram whose name means diminishing.
The relationship with Hexagram 42, Increase, works on the same principle from outside. Hexagram 41 diminishes the lower to augment the upper. Hexagram 42 diminishes the upper to augment the lower. Whichever you draw, the transfer is one event seen from a different seat.
Practitioners check which side of that pair you are on, because someone reading Hexagram 41 as pure loss is often the beneficiary rather than the source.
How is the nuclear hexagram of Hexagram 41 calculated?
Take lines two, three and four as a new lower trigram and lines three, four and five as a new upper trigram.
That gives Zhen, Thunder, below and Kun, Earth, above: Hexagram 24, Return, the hexagram of the turning point.
What does Hexagram 31 reveal as the opposite of Hexagram 41?
Hexagram 31, Influence, reveals what Decrease restrains. Influence places Lake above Mountain, letting attraction run on top of a stable base.
Hexagram 41 inverts that, seating the limit above the appetite, which is why one reads as courtship and the other as restraint.
Are Hexagram 41 and Hexagram 42 read as a pair?
Yes. They are inverse forms of each other and the tradition reads them together.
Hexagram 41 moves resources upward from the base, Hexagram 42 moves them downward from the top, and the Zagua commentary calls the pair the beginnings of flourishing and decline.
What does Hexagram 41, Decrease, advise when you are facing a decision?
If you are torn between two options, this hexagram gently suggests the real decision is what you are willing to drop.
Hexagram 41 treats your choice as a subtraction problem. The right move is to choose the cut yourself before circumstances choose it for you. It rarely endorses either option as presented, because both compete for capacity you do not have. The honest answer is to drop one and fund the other properly.
This is no counsel of delay. The Judgement says it furthers one to undertake something. The sequence is trim, then commit.
The two small bowls set the standard for the reduced version: openly smaller and unapologetic, not a full-size plan quietly underfunded.
Hexagram 41 also asks who pays. Nine at the beginning wants you to weigh how much you may decrease others. Is your efficiency being achieved by pushing the cost onto someone with less room than you?
The Image adds a timing check. Is irritation driving the cut? A decision made in anger under Hexagram 41 removes the wrong item.
In one situation Hexagram 41 is unusually direct. If you are choosing between doing something at full scale and not doing it at all, Decrease offers a route your question did not contain: do it at two-bowl size.
The hexagram treats a reduced, sincere version as fully valid, not as a compromise, and that often dissolves the deadlock. It is not a stalling answer, because the reduced version has to be real, declared and carried out now.
The nuclear Hexagram 24, Return, adds that recovery is already underway inside the situation. Your decision does not have to solve everything. It needs to stop the drain and let the turn complete, which argues against irreversible choices while Hexagram 41 is in force.
Notice where the hexagram places you, too. If the decision hands resources upward to a parent organization, an investor or a family obligation, you are the lower trigram being diminished. The lines protecting you are nine in the second and nine at the top.
Does Hexagram 41 mean you should say no to an opportunity?
Not automatically, since its Judgement says it furthers one to undertake something. It means the opportunity has to be paid for by dropping an existing commitment, not piled on top.
If there is nothing you can cut, Hexagram 41 reads as a refusal.
What timing does Hexagram 41 suggest for a decision?
Decide early and calmly. The Tuan commentary ties the reduced offering to its proper time, and the Image asks you to check anger first.
A cut made while there is still slack works. A cut made in a temper or at the last moment removes the wrong thing.
Who bears the cost in a decision under Hexagram 41?
Usually you do, because Decrease diminishes the lower to augment the upper.
Nine at the beginning adds a check in the other direction, asking how much you may decrease others, so the cut should not be quietly shifted onto someone with less capacity.
How does Hexagram 41, Decrease, read for a relationship?
If love has started to feel heavy, this hexagram suggests it will get lighter by removing something, not by trying harder.
The most quoted line here is six in the third place: when three journey together their number decreases by one, and when one journeys alone a companion is found. Hexagram 41 is saying a triangle will resolve itself, and solitude attracts partnership. That covers a third party in a romance, a friend group grown uncomfortable as a trio, and a couple with a permanently involved parent.
Six in the fourth place is the other line that dominates relationship readings, and the more demanding one. It says decreasing your faults makes the other person hurry over gladly. The reduction sits in your own behavior, not your partner's. That line changing produces Hexagram 38, Opposition, naming the estrangement the fault has caused.
Hexagram 41 almost never asks you to give up more of yourself here, since nine in the second forbids it. What it asks you to drop is a habit, a grievance or a third presence.
The trigram picture adds a nuance for couples. Dui, the Lake, is the trigram of joy and of speech, and it sits underneath with Gen, Keeping Still, on top. In a relationship reading, that is affection with a lid on it, and it cuts two ways.
If the connection has become exhausting through constant processing, constant contact or a constant appetite for reassurance, the mountain is a relief and the hexagram approves.
If the stillness has turned into withholding, Hexagram 41 is describing the problem, not prescribing it. The Image tells you which part is yours to fix, since controlling anger and restraining instincts are both self-directed.
Nine at the top is the line to watch on questions of commitment. It says one obtains servants but no longer has a separate home, which reads as a life that stops being separately maintained. That is an unusually concrete signal of merging households, and it comes with good fortune attached, not a warning. Two toothbrushes, one cup.
Does Hexagram 41 mean a breakup?
Not primarily. The reduction it names is usually a habit, an expense of energy or a third party, and its top line points toward households merging, not parting.
It signals a breakup mainly when line three casts you as the third person.
What does Hexagram 41 say about a love triangle?
It speaks to it at six in the third place: three journeying together lose one, and one journeying alone gains a companion.
The traditional reading is that the arrangement will not hold at three, and the resolution is already in motion rather than something to force.
How should you apply the fourth line of Hexagram 41 to a partner?
Apply it to yourself, not your partner. The line says decreasing your own faults brings the other hastening over with joy.
It changes into Hexagram 38, Opposition, which points to the specific behavior keeping the two of you on opposite sides.
What does Hexagram 41, Decrease, mean for work, money and career?
If work or money feels tight, this hexagram points you to the outgoing side first: what you are paying for, not how much more you can earn.
Reduce commitments, overheads and scope rather than chasing more revenue or more hours. Hexagram 41 turns up for people carrying obligations they took on when conditions were better, and it advises unwinding them deliberately instead of waiting for the shortfall to force the issue.
The two small bowls give the method. Deliver the smaller version openly rather than promising the full version and underdelivering. The Judgement attaches good fortune to sincerity, not scale.
In employment, Hexagram 41 often describes contributing upward, since Decrease diminishes the lower to augment the upper. Your work feeds a department, a client or an owner above you. That is not condemned. But nine in the second place sets the limit: you can increase others without decreasing yourself, which rules out funding your employer's results out of your own savings.
Six in the fifth place is the encouraging line for career questions, describing support so decisive that ten pairs of tortoises could not argue with it.
Business readings focus on a few moves.
Prune the product line. This is line three's arithmetic applied commercially: three offerings competing for the same attention will lose one, and the survivors get stronger. That is why the line changes into Hexagram 26, The Taming Power of the Great.
Resize the offer and say so plainly. That is the two-bowl instruction.
Repair a working relationship by removing your own part in the friction. That is line four changing into Hexagram 38, Opposition, and it fits a stalled negotiation as readily as a personal quarrel.
On money, Hexagram 41 favors reducing fixed carrying costs over cutting the things that generate work. It favors telling creditors or clients the truth about the reduced scale over quietly missing commitments. Think of a ship lightening its load: you throw over the spare cargo, not the sails.
Nine at the top marks the exit from austerity, describing increase that deprives nobody. Until that line appears, Hexagram 41 keeps the emphasis on subtraction.
What does Hexagram 41 say about asking for a raise or a loan?
It does not favor pressing the request. Six in the fifth place describes support arriving unopposed to someone who has already reduced honestly, and that line changes into Hexagram 61, Inner Truth.
A visible cut earns the increase more reliably than the argument for it.
Is Hexagram 41 a good sign for starting a business?
It supports starting at reduced scale, since the Judgement says it furthers one to undertake something while permitting a two-bowl offering.
The launch it endorses is lean, honestly described and funded by dropping an existing commitment, not financed by stretching past what nine in the second place allows.
What should you cut first under Hexagram 41 at work?
Cut fixed carrying costs and surplus commitments before the activity that produces the work.
Line three's arithmetic favors concentration, changing into Hexagram 26, so removing the weakest of several competing projects strengthens the rest rather than shrinking the operation.
Questions people ask
What does I Ching Hexagram 41, Decrease, mean in one sentence?
It means choosing to reduce something you have so that something more important can be supported, and doing it with sincerity rather than display. The Chinese name is Sun, and the classical commentary describes the movement as diminishing the lower to augment the upper. It is the hexagram of choosing the cut yourself, making it early, and keeping the reduced version honest.
What are the trigrams of Hexagram 41, Decrease?
Gen, Keeping Still, Mountain, sits above Dui, the Joyous, Lake. From the bottom up the lines run solid, solid, broken, broken, broken, solid. Picture a lake at the foot of a mountain: the water wears away the base while the mountain presses down and confines the water. Dui carries pleasure and appetite, Gen carries stillness and limit, so Hexagram 41 seats desire underneath a boundary.
What do the two small bowls in the Judgement of Hexagram 41 mean?
They refer to a stripped-down ritual offering, and they mean a modest gift given with real sincerity is fully acceptable. Sacrifices were expected to be lavish, and Hexagram 41 permits two bowls instead. You do not need to apologize for a small contribution or borrow so the gift looks generous. The Tuan commentary adds that the two bowls belong to their proper time, so this is a concession for a lean season, not a permanent standard.
Which hexagram is the opposite of Hexagram 41, Decrease?
Hexagram 31, Influence (Xian), formed by turning every line of Hexagram 41 into its contrary. That gives Gen, Mountain, below and Dui, Lake, above. Where Hexagram 41 puts appetite under a limit, Hexagram 31 puts the limit underneath and lets attraction move freely on top. Hexagram 41 also has an inverse partner, Hexagram 42, Increase, the same figure turned upside down.
Is Hexagram 41, Decrease, a bad answer to a money question?
No, but it puts the correction on the outgoing side. It points at commitments, subscriptions and carrying costs you took on when conditions were better. The Judgement promises supreme good fortune when reduction is paired with sincerity, which in money terms means telling the truth about the shortfall instead of hiding it. Six in the fifth place is where outside support arrives, after the honest cut.
What does Hexagram 41 mean if six in the fifth place is changing?
The line says that someone does indeed increase him, that ten pairs of tortoises cannot oppose it, and that this brings supreme good fortune. Tortoise shells were the instrument of consultation, so the support arriving is more certain than any oracle could contradict. Help comes unasked to someone who has already reduced honestly. With this line changing, Hexagram 41 becomes Hexagram 61, Inner Truth.
What is the difference between Hexagram 41, Decrease, and Hexagram 42, Increase?
They are the same transfer seen from opposite ends, and inverse forms of each other. Hexagram 41 diminishes the lower to augment the upper, so you are usually giving up resources or funding something above you. Hexagram 42 diminishes the upper to augment the lower, so you are usually receiving backing. The Zagua commentary treats the pair as the opening move of rise and decline.
What does today hold for you?
Pop in your birthday. Your reading shows up right here. No email, no account.
Try it for yourself, free
Related topics: i ching hexagram 41, hexagram 41 meaning, hexagram 41 decrease, i ching decrease, hexagram 41 changing lines, hexagram 41 nuclear hexagram, hexagram 41 judgement
