Hexagram 41
損
Sǔn
Decrease
Upper Trigram
艮 Gèn
Mountain — Stillness
Lower Trigram
兌 Duì
Lake — Joyous
Classical Texts
The Judgment
有孚。元吉。无咎可貞。利有攸往。曷之用。二簋可用享。
The Image
山下有澤，損。君子以懲忿窒欲。
The Lines
Line 1
初九 已事遄往。无咎。酌損之。
Line 2
九二 利貞。征凶。弗損益之。
Line 3
六三 三人行。則損一人。一人行。則得其友。
Line 4
六四 損其疾。使遄有喜。无咎。
Line 5
六五 或益之十朋之龜。弗克違。元吉。
Line 6
上九 弗損益之。无咎。貞吉。利有攸往。得臣无家。
Winter Landscape
Sesshū Tōyō (雪舟等楊), 15th century
Decrease
A winter landscape stripped to bone. Sesshū Tōyō, the Zen monk who traveled to Ming China in the 1460s, renders the scene in monochrome ink on paper—a few bare trees, jagged rocks, a solitary temple structure nearly swallowed by mountain mass. The 15th-century painting uses minimal brushwork, each stroke deliberate. No decoration survives winter's reduction. Snow implies itself through absence of ink, white paper becoming the substance of cold.
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Sesshū was a Zen monk who traveled to China in the 1460s and brought Song Dynasty ink painting techniques back to Japan. This winter scene uses minimal brushwork and monochrome ink to depict a bare landscape stripped of ornamentation. The reduction of visual elements to essential forms connects to hexagram 41's theme of decrease. This is Sǔn (損), the hexagram ancient diviners called Decrease. The character combines elements suggesting loss or reduction, but not as calamity—as deliberate subtraction. The trigram structure places Mountain (Gèn) above Lake (Duì): the mountain rising high while the lake drains below, water descending to nourish what lies beneath. In Sesshū's landscape, the visual vocabulary contracts to essentials. What remains after reduction carries greater weight than what accumulates through addition. Zhou Dynasty court records show this configuration appearing when rulers reduced palace expenses to relieve famine, when generals lightened supply trains for faster movement. The Judgment text addresses the principle directly: "Decrease combined with sincerity brings about supreme good fortune without blame. One may be persevering in this. It furthers one to undertake something. How is this to be carried out? Two small bowls may be used for the sacrifice." The text instructs that even ritual offerings can be reduced when done with genuine intent. Sesshū's painting embodies this counsel—the monk reduces landscape to its structural truth, eliminating the decorative detail that characterized Chinese academic painting. What the brush omits becomes as significant as what it records. Song Dynasty diviners understood decrease not as poverty but as concentration, the way winter reduces the tree to reveal its essential form. The Image Text observes: "At the foot of the mountain, the lake: the image of Decrease. Thus the superior person controls anger and restrains instincts." Water drains from the heights to gather in the depths, a natural movement downward. Sesshū's winter landscape shows this principle in visual form—the high peaks bare and austere, their substance having descended to nourish the valley below. In the I-Ching's sequence, Sǔn follows Xiè (deliverance from obstruction): after tension releases, one must decrease excess to establish sustainable balance. The winter scene does not depict loss but clarification, the way subtracting ornament reveals what endures beneath.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 41 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.
路多枳棘，步刺我足。不利孤客，為心作毒。
The road thick with thorns and brambles; each step pierces my feet. Unfavorable for the lone traveler; it becomes poison to the heart.
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Mountain above lake returns to itself — Decrease unchanged, the pattern reinforced. The road bristles with thorns and brambles, each step piercing the foot. This path is no friend to the solitary traveler; it poisons the heart. When Decrease transforms into itself, there is no escape from the dynamic of diminishment. The thorns multiply underfoot, and the lone walker has no companion to share the burden or clear the way. From Decrease to Decrease, the recursion intensifies: what was voluntary sacrifice becomes compulsive self-harm, the road itself becoming hostile. The verse captures the existential weight of isolation within a system designed to take. Solitude makes every thorn sharper; without reciprocity, Decrease is just loss.
中文注释
山下有澤，損之象。「路多枳棘，步刺我足」——道路荊棘叢生，每步刺足。「不利孤客，為心作毒」——不利於獨行之客，令人心生苦毒。損之損，自身重疊，減損不止。從損至損，無所轉化，循環往復。荊棘之路愈行愈密，孤身行者無人分擔。損而不變，自願之捨棄變為被動之消耗。道路本身成為敵人，每一步都在損耗行者。無人相伴則損失加倍——非但物質減少，心靈亦被侵蝕。損而復損，苦中加苦。
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Mountain (艮)
Same lower trigram: Lake (兌)