Yi is the hexagram of growth that benefits others. Wind moves above while thunder stirs below, and the old readers saw an increase that is not hoarded but spread — the strong giving of its own strength so that the whole may rise. The judgment is generous: it furthers one to undertake something, it furthers one to cross the great water. When the time of increase comes, the text says, the wise person does not sit still but uses the rising tide to begin great things.
Read against the working life, the figure is about the increase that is earned and shared. The lines trace its sources — one is enriched through unfortunate events, and the commentators saw here the book's paradox: hardship itself, honestly met, becomes the seed of gain. The fifth line is the heart of it: if in truth you have a kind heart, ask not. Increase that flows from a genuinely generous spirit needs no bargaining, and the one who gives from fullness is increased by the very giving.
For the bonds between people, Yi was read as the growth that a good relationship brings to both. The second line, ten pairs of tortoises cannot oppose it, was the ancients' image of an increase so well-founded that nothing can stand against it — the solid good that two people build together. But the closing line is the warning: he brings increase to no one, and someone even strikes him. The person who takes without giving, who keeps his heart from staying steady, is the one increase abandons.
Within a cycle, this figure marks a phase of expansion, a stretch when giving and receiving are both in season. The image of wind above thunder is the book's picture of motion that stirs and spreads — energy that rises and carries others upward with it. The counsel is to use the moment generously, to undertake what the rising tide makes possible, and to remember that the only increase that endures is the one that is shared.
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Cast the I Ching Oracle → Free · No sign-up · 3,000-year-old methodSource: Judgment and line texts follow the Wilhelm/Baynes rendering of the Yijing.