Decrease takes reduction as its subject, and it does something unusual: it treats cutting back as potentially auspicious. The distinction it draws is between being diminished and choosing to diminish.
The structure: Mountain over Lake
The lake below, the mountain above. Stillness above and containment below — the image of passion held within a form that does not move.
The Judgment
Decrease combined with sincerity brings about supreme good fortune without blame. One may be persevering in this. It furthers one to undertake something. How is this to be carried out? One may use two small bowls for the sacrifice.
The closing image carries the argument. A modest offering made sincerely is sufficient — the scale of the sacrifice is not the point. Reduction becomes auspicious when it strips away what was never load-bearing.
The Image
At the foot of the mountain, the lake: the image of Decrease. Thus the superior man curbs his anger and restrains his instincts.
The instruction is specific in a way that is easy to skip: the thing to decrease is not resources but reaction.
The lines
- Line 1 — Going quickly when one's tasks are finished is without blame. But one must reflect on how much one may decrease others.
- Line 2 — Perseverance furthers. To undertake something brings misfortune. Without decreasing oneself, one is able to bring increase to others.
- Line 3 — When three people journey together, their number decreases by one. When one man journeys alone, he finds a companion.
- Line 4 — If a man decreases his faults, it makes the other hasten to come and gladden him. No blame.
- Line 5 — Someone does indeed increase him. Ten pairs of tortoises cannot oppose this. Supreme good fortune.
- Line 6 — If one, without decreasing oneself, brings increase to others, one obtains a great following.
Lines 2 and 6 both make the same careful point: decrease that increases others is different from depletion. The text is precise about which one it endorses.
In practice
The useful question when this hexagram appears is what can be removed without cost. Most situations carry more structure than they need, and Decrease is the hexagram that names that.
The two small bowls
The judgment's closing image is the clearest statement of the hexagram's argument. A sacrifice made in small vessels is sufficient if it is sincere — which reframes decrease as a question of what is actually required rather than what is customary.
That is why the Image directs the reduction inward. What is usually excessive is reaction, not provision.