益 → 未濟

Commentary

Wind and thunder bestow increase, but the transformation leads to fire above water — the unresolved incompletion of Before Completion. Two men are both drunk, quarreling with each other in mutual hostility. Their hearts diverge and cannot agree, and their dispute grows loud and bitter. The doubled intoxication creates a symmetry of impairment: neither party can think clearly, and their conflict feeds on itself with no arbiter to intervene. The noise of their lawsuit fills the air, but no resolution is possible because both are equally incapacitated. From Increase to Before Completion, the verse captures the hexagram's essential tension: fire and water are not yet in their proper positions, and the crossing has not been made. Increase poured into two drunken disputants simply amplifies the chaos. The final hexagram of the cycle ends as it must — with everything still unfinished, suspended in contention.