41. Decrease
Judgment
Decrease combined with sincerity brings supreme success. Two bowls instead of eight — honest sacrifice is more meaningful than lavish offering.
Image
Lake below the mountain — the superior person reduces ill tendencies and increases worthy deeds.
Changing Lines
Going quickly when tasks are finished — without blame. Decrease through efficiency.
Perseverance brings misfortune — increase without decreasing the foundation.
When three people travel together, decrease becomes one — when one travels alone, increase becomes two.
Decreasing illness — quick happiness. sincerity without self-interest.
Increase without decrease — good fortune beyond doubt. Supreme sincerity brings divine blessing.
Not decreasing but increasing — good fortune from true generosity. Nothing that does not further.
Reading Decrease today
When Decrease (損) appears in a modern casting, it's rarely about ancient kings or dragons in any literal sense. The hexagram speaks in metaphor about a shape your situation is taking right now. The lower joyous lake sits beneath the upper keeping still mountain, pairing openness, conversation, shared pleasure with stillness, boundary, refusing to move. Read this as the inside meeting the outside: how you carry yourself underneath versus how the situation arrives on top.
The hexagram's recurring themes — decrease, sacrifice, letting_go — usually surface in real life around decisions where the question is less "what should I do" and more "what does this moment actually want from me." Read the Legge judgment above slowly, then sit with the changing lines if any showed up in your cast: the lines are where the hexagram's advice becomes specific to your question, not the situation in general.
Questions Decrease answers well
- What does this hexagram say about my current situation?
- Should I act, wait, or step back from this?
- Where is the real change happening underneath the surface?
- Who or what is this hexagram pointing me toward?
Curious how this would read against your own question? Cast Decrease as a live reading in Hexora →