Hexagram 42 - Increase
A source-linked hexagram entry in the I Ching Atlas.
How to read this entry
Read as a source-linked field of change, not as a prediction.
This Atlas page helps orientation. The real reading still begins with the text and your own question.
Source reading and stance
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.
Where this hexagram often appears.
These fields are addresses toward the source reading, not separate meanings.
Situations
- something is being added
- going through growth
- investing in something
- having the wind at your back
- getting more resources
- making the most of a windfall
- receiving a boost
- knowing where to channel growth
Questions
- Where am I letting this growth flow?
- Does this feed what matters or just my own self-importance?
- How do I make good use of a windfall?
- When does growth tip over into greed?
What often plays here
- excitement about growth
- temptation to want more
- drive to expand
- fear of losing the gain
What this asks
- aim growth at what matters
- receive without smallness
- make it fruitful instead of hoarding
- keep proportion in good times
Plain-language entrances.
Hexagram 42 - Increase
Hexagram 42 - Increase gives language to a recognisable I Ching pattern. Read the linked hexagram as the source, not as a separate interpretation.
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.
Canonical relations
Related doors
Related context
From context to practice
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Source status
This entry is Atlas context. It points back to the source instead of becoming a separate teaching.
View source anchor
Source: corpus:hexagram/42
Claim: derived - Review: validated - Policy: derived-atlas-projection