Hexagram 42: Increase Changing to Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward

I Ching casting meaning · Yi → Sheng

Increase is climbing — Pushing Upward, where the growth continues but at an organic pace rather than the dramatic spurt of the initial expansion. This is steady ascent: the small credential, the incremental gain, the relationship built one meeting at a time. Find mentors and advocates who respect what you've already grown; upward paths run through people now. Growth this steady meets no resistance because it's not forcing — it's growing, naturally, toward the sun. The summit is real. Take the stairs. Increase that climbs gradually after its growth spurt arrives at the top with the foundation to stay there, unlike those who sprinted up and collapsed at the peak.

A casting that moves from Increase into Pushing Upward means the situation you asked about is not static — it begins as one pattern and resolves into another. The first hexagram describes where you stand; the second describes where events are carrying you.

Highlighted in red: lines 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 are moving — counted from the bottom. A moving line is where the change is actually happening: it flips from yang to yin or back, and that flip is what turns Increase into Pushing Upward.

The situation: Hexagram 42, Increase

True increase. Wind and thunder multiply each other.

Wind and thunder feeding each other — energy that multiplies instead of canceling out. This is one of the great draws: genuine increase, the kind where resources, opportunities, and momentum all rise together. The classic instruction has a spine to it, though: increase flows to people who use it well. See good, copy it fast. See your own faults, cut them faster. This is also the season to do something significant with the surplus — invest in people, take the meaningful risk, fund the thing that matters. Increase hoarded curdles; increase circulated compounds. You're being given more because the universe expects you to move it.

Structurally, Increase is Thunder below Wind — the inner state meeting the outer condition. That pairing is the lens for everything above.

Where it's heading: Hexagram 46, Pushing Upward

Steady ascent. Growth climbs step by step, unopposed.

The changed hexagram is the trajectory, not a verdict. As the moving lines settle, the energy of Increase gives way to Pushing Upward (Sheng) — Wind below Earth. The advice that belongs to this outcome: Climb step by step with a guide. Steady effort now meets no resistance.