夬 → 益
Hexagram 43: Breakthrough → Hexagram 42: Increase
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 6).
Line 2
九二 惕號。莫夜有戎。勿恤。
Nine in the second place means: A cry of alarm. Arms at evening and at night. Fear nothing.
Line 3
九三 壯于頄。有凶。君子夬夬。獨行遇雨。若濡有慍。无咎。
Nine in the third place means: To be powerful in the cheekbones Brings misfortune. The superior man is firmly resolved. He walks alone and is caught in the rain. He is bespattered, And people murmur against him. No blame.
Line 4
九四 臀无膚。其行次且。牽羊悔亡。聞言不信。
Nine in the fourth place means: There is no skin on his thighs, And walking comes hard. If a man were to let himself be led like a sheep, Remorse would disappear. But if these words are heard They will not be believed.
Line 6
上六 无號。終有凶。
Six at the top means: No cry. In the end misfortune comes.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
孤獨特處，莫依无輔，心勞志苦。
Alone and solitary, dwelling apart; with none to rely on, none to help. The heart toils and the spirit suffers.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake risen above heaven disperses into the wind and thunder of increase. Yet the verse describes the opposite of increase: solitary and isolated, with no one to depend on and no support. The heart labors and the will suffers. This is a person who should benefit from the generous downward flow that Increase provides — wind and thunder working together, the ruler diminishing his surplus to enrich those below — but who remains cut off from all sources of aid. From Breakthrough to Increase, the decisive removal of obstacles should open channels for growth. Instead, the subject stands alone in the cleared space, finding that breakthrough without connection yields only emptiness. Increase requires both a giver and a receiver; here, the receiver has no one to receive from.
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