益 → 蹇
Hexagram 42: Increase → Hexagram 39: Obstruction
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 6).
Line 1
初九 利用為大作。元吉无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: It furthers one to accomplish great deeds. Supreme good fortune. No blame.
Line 3
六三 益之用凶事。无咎。有孚中行。告公用圭。
Six in the third place means: One is enriched through unfortunate events. No blame, if you are sincere And walk in the middle, And report with a seal to the prince.
Line 6
上九 莫益之。或擊之。立心勿恆。凶。
Nine at the top means: He brings increase to no one. Indeed, someone even strikes him. He does not keep his heart constantly steady. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
丑戌亥子，飢饉前生。陰陽暴客，水絕我食。
In the hours of Chou, Xu, Hai, and Zi, famine precedes all else. Yin and yang — violent visitors — flood and sever our food.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind and thunder bestow increase, but the transformation leads to water upon the mountain — the treacherous terrain of Obstruction. The earthly branches Chou, Xu, Hai, and Zi herald a time when famine has already begun. Yin and yang clash like violent intruders, and floodwaters cut off the food supply. The four branches mentioned all correspond to the cold, dark months of the calendar — deep winter when stores run low and nature offers nothing. The 'violent guests' of yin and yang suggest unseasonable weather or cosmic disorder that destroys what little remains. From Increase to Obstruction, the pattern is grim: water atop the mountain cannot flow to nourish the fields below. Every path forward is blocked, and the increase that should have prevented famine instead arrives as the flood that completes the destruction.
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