恆 → 損
Hexagram 32: Duration → Hexagram 41: Decrease
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 6).
Line 1
初六 浚恆貞凶。无攸利。
Six at the beginning means: Seeking duration too hastily brings misfortune persistently. Nothing that would further.
Line 3
九三 不恆其德。或承之羞。貞吝。
Nine in the third place means: He who does not give duration to his character Meets with disgrace. Persistent humiliation.
Line 4
九四 田无禽。
Nine in the fourth place means: No game in the field.
Line 6
上六 振恆凶。
Six at the top means: Restlessness as an enduring condition brings misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
五勝相賊，火得水息，精光消滅，絕不長續。
The five phases overcome each other; fire meets water and is quenched. Its vital radiance is extinguished; cut off, it shall not continue.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above wind, Duration's dynamic balance, gives way to mountain above lake — Decrease's deliberate sacrifice. The five elemental phases devour one another: fire meets water and is extinguished. Radiant light is snuffed out; the bright line breaks and will not continue. The wuxing cycle of mutual conquest is invoked directly: water overcomes fire, ending light itself. Duration's perpetual motion halts when the elemental antagonist arrives. What endured is not merely weakened but annihilated — the extinction is total and final. From Duration to Decrease, the mountain draws from the lake below, diminishing its reserves. Here the decrease is catastrophic rather than strategic: fire's essence is not trimmed but destroyed. The verse warns that even what seems perpetual can be terminated by its natural opposite.
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