I Ching hexagram guide
Hexagram 42: Increase
Yi / 益 · Wind over Thunder
View editorial note
This English page uses the Judgment, the Image, and the line texts as the backbone of the reading. Drawing on Takashima Ekidan's practical case tradition, it applies the hexagram to the question at hand—role, timing, pressure, relationships, money, authority, and risk.
Direct the increase toward lasting growth and shared benefit
Yi brings a real opening for growth. Direct money, authority, care, or attention toward the productive or neglected base, and use the gain for work that can benefit more than yourself. Growth remains favorable when purpose is steady, reporting is clear, and recipients become more capable.
What to do now
Identify the place where support will create the most durable capacity and act promptly. Define purpose, governance, milestones, and who benefits. Invest in skills, infrastructure, health, trusted people, or verified relief rather than private display.
What to avoid
Do not scatter the opening across small pleasures, hoard benefit, exploit emergencies, or request another round before accounting for the first. Avoid changing purpose with every gain. Increase without steadiness will exhaust goodwill.
Timing
The first line funds a great work; the second receives major support with constancy. The third directs aid to a crisis; the fourth coordinates a major structural change. The fifth gives from a sincere heart. The top line loses support through endless demand.
Love · Work · Money
Love: invest care where it builds mutual security and capacity, not dependence or gratitude debt. Work: fund the high-leverage team, system, or reform and report outcomes transparently. Money: use windfalls and new capital for durable assets, verified relief, and productive capacity; avoid lifestyle inflation and repeated extraction.
Read your changing line
If your reading has changing lines, start with those sections. They help you consider what may be changing in your situation.
Read the reasoning
The sections below explain the judgment, image, practical reading, and each changing line.
What this situation means
Current situation
Hexagram 42 Yi, Increase, can describe a situation in which resources, support, or momentum can create real growth. Wind moves above Thunder: action spreads quickly, and benefit multiplies when it is sent toward the place where life can respond.
The pattern this hexagram describes
You may have funding, attention, talent, recovery, favorable policy, or a willing network. Yi asks whether the increase serves only private accumulation or strengthens the lower, neglected, or productive part of the whole.
How this relates to your question
A timely investment could unlock growth, people are ready to act, emergency resources can prevent wider harm, or your own benefit will last only if it improves the capacity of others.
Decision · Judgment
Original Text
It is favorable to go forward. It is favorable to cross the great river.
The answer
It is favorable to act and to cross a major difficulty when increase is directed toward genuine growth. Use the opening for work that creates durable benefit, not for consumption or status.
Conditions
Resources must reach people or projects that need them and can use them well, guided by sincerity and a wider purpose. Correct increase improves infrastructure, skills, health, trust, or public capacity. Greater benefit requires greater accountability.
Caution
Do not keep asking for more after support has arrived, change direction with every gain, or concentrate benefit where it produces only dependence and resentment. Increase without constancy invites withdrawal and counterattack.
The pattern behind the reading · Structure
The pattern
Benefit moves from above toward below, strengthening the place where action begins. Thunder initiates; Wind distributes. When surplus reaches the productive base, both giver and receiver gain and the whole can cross difficulty.
Test the pattern
Trace the increase to its outcome. Does money, attention, authority, or care create more capability and wider benefit? Can the recipient remain correct over time? If the gain ends in hoarding, vanity, or another request without changed capacity, it is not yet Yi.
How to proceed · Image
The method
Wind and Thunder form Increase. The noble person sees good and moves toward it, sees error and changes it. Growth begins as rapid learning and correction, not as possession.
Practical sequence
Identify the behavior or project already showing life, direct resources there, and set a public purpose and measure. Copy proven good quickly, correct errors without defensiveness, and report how benefit is used. Build continuity before requesting another round.
Applied reading
Where it applies
Yi can describe investment, grants, mentoring, hiring, education, treatment, public aid, product growth, recovery, or a reform that shifts resources toward the productive base. It favors timely action and large crossings.
Questions to ask
Where would support do the most lasting good? Who benefits beyond me? What must remain correct as resources grow? Is this increase for ordinary growth, emergency relief, or structural change? What evidence will show capacity increased?
What success looks like
Benefit reaches the right place, produces skill or resilience, and spreads without coercion. The recipient becomes more capable, the giver's purpose gains trust, and growth continues through stable conduct rather than repeated extraction.
First Line
Current stage
New support arrives at the beginning, when it can still shape the entire course. The reading encourages using the gain for more than a passing pleasure; it can fund work of lasting value.
The line
‘It is favorable to undertake a great work. Great good fortune. No blame.’
Reading
The line describes unusual support and asks for a use worthy of it. A major task is favorable when it benefits more than the receiver and has a foundation capable of carrying it.
Action
Direct the new time, money, authority, or health toward the highest-leverage project. Define who will benefit, what progress should look like, and who will be responsible before spending. Avoid dispersing the opening across minor upgrades that leave no durable result.
Second Line
Current stage
Valuable support comes without being forced, like a gift confirmed by an oracle. It becomes fortunate through long constancy and reverence for the source.
The line
‘Someone increases him by ten pairs of tortoise shells; it cannot be refused. Enduring constancy brings good fortune. The king offers to the Supreme and has good fortune.’
Reading
The size of the gift requires humility and continuity. True increase is not a windfall detached from duty; it asks the recipient to use the benefit responsibly over time.
Action
Accept the support, document terms, honor contributors, and make a plan to care for it over the long term. For a grant, inheritance, or new role, make responsibilities clear. If the increase is returning health or strength, build routines that will sustain it. Do not increase personal consumption before the underlying purpose is secure.
Third Line
Current stage
Increase must be used in a harmful or disastrous situation. Although the circumstance is painful, directing resources accurately through trusted channels brings no blame.
The line
‘Increase is used in a calamitous matter. No blame. With trust, walk in the middle and report to the leader with the jade tablet.’
Reading
Emergency benefit is measured by relief, not normal return. Sincerity, central judgment, and transparent reporting protect urgent action from becoming panic or exploitation.
Action
Send funds, staff, treatment, shelter, or authority to the verified crisis. Keep receipts and command lines clear, prioritize the most exposed, and report facts upward. Do not use the emergency to bypass all accountability.
Fourth Line
Current stage
You stand between levels and can translate need into a major structural move. Clear reporting earns authority to relocate the center for long-term benefit.
The line
‘Walking in the middle, report to the leader and be followed. It is favorable to be relied upon in moving the capital.’
Reading
This is increase through coordination and redesign, not a private gift. A large move succeeds when the intermediary is trusted and the public reason is understood.
Action
Present the evidence, affected groups, costs, and transition plan. Build consent across levels, then move the team, budget, facility, or operating model. Keep the redistribution tied to common benefit and measurable outcomes.
Fifth Line
Current stage
Benefit flows from a sincere heart and directly reaches other hearts. There is no need to keep asking whether generosity will be rewarded; the goodness of the action establishes its own trust.
The line
‘With trust and a benevolent heart, do not ask: great good fortune. Trust in benevolence increases my virtue.’
Reading
At the center of Increase, giving and character strengthen one another. The action is neither marketing nor control. Recipients recognize care because it responds to real need.
Action
Provide the useful help without theatrical conditions. Make access fair, protect dignity, and follow through. Let gratitude remain voluntary. Measure whether people become more capable, and allow their trust—not publicity—to confirm the value.
Top Line
Current stage
Increase has turned into endless demand. No one will continue giving, and some will strike back because the recipient has no steady purpose or reciprocal responsibility.
The line
‘No one increases him; someone strikes him. He does not keep his heart constant. Misfortune.’
Reading
Private appetite exhausts goodwill. When each benefit merely changes the next demand, supporters feel used and the wider system defends itself.
Action
Stop asking for another round. Account for what was received, repair broken trust, and choose a stable purpose. Return improper gains where necessary. Rebuild through contribution and consistent conduct before seeking support again.
Read this hexagram in context
Question, Changing Line, Hexagram
A hexagram becomes useful when it returns to the question: what is changing, where the pressure sits, and what kind of action is actually available.
Related Reading
Questions This Hexagram Asks
Does Yi predict financial or career growth?
It can, especially when new resources are directed into productive capacity. The reading is less about possessing more than about where the benefit goes and what lasting ability it creates.
Is it a good time for a large project?
Yes when support, purpose, governance, and public benefit align. The first line favors a great work, and the Judgment favors crossing difficulty, but the gain must not be wasted on minor appetite.
Why does the final line turn hostile?
Because increase became unstable demand rather than shared growth. Supporters withdraw or resist when benefits are hoarded, unaccounted for, or followed only by another request.
Does Yi predict financial or career growth?Open
It can, especially when new resources are directed into productive capacity. The reading is less about possessing more than about where the benefit goes and what lasting ability it creates.
Is it a good time for a large project?Open
Yes when support, purpose, governance, and public benefit align. The first line favors a great work, and the Judgment favors crossing difficulty, but the gain must not be wasted on minor appetite.
Why does the final line turn hostile?Open
Because increase became unstable demand rather than shared growth. Supporters withdraw or resist when benefits are hoarded, unaccounted for, or followed only by another request.
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