未濟 → 益

Commentary

Fire above water, the situation unsettled, yet trade prospers. It is fit to go to market and do business; whatever is sought returns doubled. One carries home joy and embraces a child; profit becomes a companion. The verse is unambiguously commercial and fertile — trade, children, and wealth all multiplying. From Before Completion to Increase, fire-over-water transforms into wind above thunder, the image of dynamic augmentation. Increase is the hexagram where the ruler diminishes the upper to benefit the lower, creating a rising tide. The verse captures Increase's mechanism: investment yields returns, unions produce offspring, and the cycle of benefit feeds itself. What Before Completion left unfinished, Increase completes through generative circulation.