Your reading

Your reading resulted in the following hexagrams:

	changing to
41		4

Hexagram 41, Decreasing

Key Questions

Why do you want to make such an offering?
How much is truly asked of you?
Could this be simpler?

Oracle

'Decreasing: there is truth and confidence.
From the source, good fortune.
Not a mistake, there can be constancy.
Fruitful to have a direction to go.
How to use this?
Two simple baskets may be used for the offering.'

The early Chinese character for 'Decreasing' shows a hand with a vessel: decreasing, you pour out what you have in offering. You focus your faith and hope on something higher than your everyday life, and sacrifice lower things to this. When you do so with an undivided heart, it opens the flow of good fortune, and your life becomes lighter and simpler.

Yi offers reassurance: even when you have little to give, making offerings is not wrong. Trusting your insight and persevering in your chosen direction, you understand why you are doing this, rather than dwelling on what you are giving up. You may still wonder how you can do it, or how much you are expected to give. But the offering need only be modest – not hundreds of animals, but just two baskets. You are not asked to give beyond your means.

Image

'Below the mountain is the lake: Decreasing.
A noble one curbs anger and restrains desires.'

Sequence

Decreasing follows from Hexagram 40, Release:
'Letting things take their time naturally means letting go, and so Decreasing follows.'

Pair

Decreasing forms a pair with Hexagram 42, Increasing:
'Decreasing, Increasing: the beginnings of abundance and decline.'

Changing Lines

Hexagram 4, Not Knowing

Key Questions

What don't you know?
What if you didn't need to know all the answers now?
How can you learn from experience?

Oracle

'Not knowing, creating success.
I do not seek the young ignoramus, the young ignoramus seeks me.
The first consultation speaks clearly.
The second and third pollute the waters,
Polluted, and hence not speaking.
Constancy bears fruit.'

Not Knowing literally means being covered over, like a young animal hidden away in the undergrowth by its mother. So you are ignorant, and cannot see as far as you would like to – but this is not such a terrible thing while you are still so small. To be small and ignorant is a creative, harmonious way to engage with your world, and holding steadily to not knowing – and hence to learning – will bring good results.

But this flow, from 'creating success' to 'constancy bears fruit', is interrupted when the young ignoramus goes running after answers, as if it were embarrassing not to know. In his anxious persistence he shows a profound disrespect – for his teacher, and also for the answer he is seeking that he imagines can be had so quickly. So the 'I' who speaks here gives one clear answer, and then may refuse to answer – or perhaps there is just such confusion that no answers can be understood.

That speaker can be another person you're asking for a response you need. It can also be the oracle itself, or what speaks through it.

Image

'Below the mountain, spring water comes forth: Not Knowing.
A noble one nourishes character with the fruits of action.'

Sequence

Not Knowing follows from Hexagram 3, Sprouting:
'Things that are newly born must needs be ignorant, and so Not Knowing follows. Not Knowing means ignorance, and the youth of things.'

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