益 → 豐
Hexagram 42: Increase → Hexagram 55: Abundance
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5, 6).
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 4
六四 中行。告公從。利用為依遷國。
Six in the fourth place means: If you walk in the middle And report the prince, He will follow. It furthers one to be used In the removal of the capital.
Line 5
九五 有孚惠心。勿問元吉。有孚惠我德。
Nine in the fifth place means: If in truth you have a kind heart, ask not. Supreme good fortune. Truly, kindness will be recognized as your virtue.
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
好戰亡國，師不以律。稱上殞墜，齊侯狠戾，其被災祟。
Loving war and losing the state, the army cast off all discipline. The ruler falls from on high; the Marquis of Qi, cruel and savage, is struck by calamity and curse.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind and thunder bestow increase, but the transformation leads to thunder and lightning arriving together — the overwhelming fullness of Abundance, here experienced as catastrophic excess. Warmongering destroys the state; the army operates without discipline. The exalted one falls from his height; the Duke of Qi, cruel and violent, suffers his calamity. This likely refers to one of the militaristic Qi rulers whose aggressive campaigns overextended and ruined the state. 'The army not governed by law' is a direct inversion of the Yijing's ideal of disciplined force. The fall from the heights — 'ascending then plummeting' — captures the Abundance hexagram's central warning: fullness at its peak is already beginning to decline. From Increase to Abundance, the verse reveals how increase pushed past its natural limit becomes the very engine of destruction. Thunder and lightning illuminate brilliantly but briefly.
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