42. Increase
Increase is hexagram 42 of the 64 in the I Ching, also known as the Book of Changes (in Chinese Yì, 益).
Increase is favorable only when what grows truly feeds the right direction.
Core image
This hexagram is about gain, reinforcement, a current running in your favor. Something is added: means, influence, footing, sheer vitality. But the question is not only whether more arrives. The question is where that surplus flows, and what it makes possible by flowing there.
Tension
The tension sits in the lure of growth itself. People trust increase easily as long as it confirms something they were already attached to. But this hexagram asks for the right use of gain, not just the having of it. Growth that only feeds the inflated self turns into loss before long.
Distortion
Increase goes wrong when it becomes greed, the urge to expand, the swelling of the self. Then the size grows while the rightness shrinks. What looks like a lot has gone thin on the inside.
Stance
Use the gain to nourish, to mend, to strengthen what truly needs to grow. Don't let the surplus pile up out of fear; let it move toward where it does living work. Good increase does not make you fat — it makes you fruitful.
Closing line
What truly increases enlarges not only what you hold, but what you are able to do.
Plain-language entrances.
Derived addresses for this hexagram. They help search and recognition, but do not change the source meaning.
hexagram 42 vermeerdering en bijdrage
Hexagram 42 gaat over vermeerdering: groei die ontstaat door juiste bijdrage, steun en beweging.
Changing lines of hexagram 42
- Line 1. At the start there is a strong push toward increase. That is favorable as long as the movement stays in service of something larger than your own haste. A good beginning will not carry cheap self-enlargement.
- Line 2. Here increase arrives as something you can barely force, but must receive without smallness. The line asks for trust in a real gain. What is given does not need to be held under suspicion.
- Line 3. At this point something grows under the pressure of circumstance. That can bear fruit, but only with upright use of the surplus. Otherwise the gain goes cloudy again at once.
- Line 4. Here increase is bound to responsibility in the middle of the field. You grow not for yourself alone, but for the sake of order. That gives the expansion weight.
- Line 5. This line shows the widest form of increase: a center that does good and so draws support without extorting it. Here growth works as blessing, not as claim.
- Line 6. When all you still want is more, increase loses its ground. The hunger to receive stays on while the power to use it well drains away. This line warns against growth with no inner measure.
Related hexagrams
Frequently asked questions about hexagram 42
What does hexagram 42, Increase, mean in the I Ching?
Increase is favorable only when what grows truly feeds the right direction. This hexagram is about gain, reinforcement, a current running in your favor. Something is added: means, influence, footing, sheer vitality. But the question is not only whether more arrives. The question is where that surplus flows, and what it makes possible by flowing there.
What does hexagram 42 (Increase) ask of you?
The tension sits in the lure of growth itself. People trust increase easily as long as it confirms something they were already attached to. But this hexagram asks for the right use of gain, not just the having of it. Growth that only feeds the inflated self turns into loss before long.
Read what is in motion in your situation.
A hexagram only takes on meaning in relation to your own question. Ask one and read what appears.