Hexagram 41: Decrease
損Sǔn
Less, but offered in earnest.
The passages below are historical language. Their references to fortune, danger, and the exemplary person belong to the text’s world. Our modern explanation is an invitation to reflect on your situation.
The Judgment
Classical Chinese
損。 有孚，元吉，無咎，可貞。利有攸往。曷之用?二簋可用享。
Our English rendering
Decrease. With sincerity, there is great good fortune and no blame; one may remain steadfast. It is favorable to have somewhere to go. What is needed for the offering? Two ritual bowls may be used.
The Image
Classical Chinese
象曰：山下有澤，損。君子以征忿窒慾。
Our English rendering
A lake is beneath the mountain: Decrease. A person of integrity subdues anger and restrains desire.
Translation note: The two bowls are ritual offering vessels in the source. Their modest number belongs to an ancient sacrificial setting and is retained without turning the passage into a modern promise of reward for spending less.
A modern reading
The mountain stands above the lake, placing height beside a reserve that has limits. Decrease asks what can be reduced without emptying an act of meaning. The Judgment's two ritual bowls make a modest offering sufficient when sincerity is present. For reflection, consider whether the scale of an undertaking has grown beyond what its purpose needs. A smaller commitment, carefully fulfilled, may give that purpose a clearer form and leave enough resources to sustain it.
The Image locates reduction in anger and desire, two impulses that can keep demanding more. The practical issue is how an impulse affects your next choice: another purchase, a sharper reply, or an additional claim on someone else's time. Pausing at that point can make the demand visible. Choose a reduction that you can understand and maintain, with attention to what it frees for others or for the work you have already agreed to do.
A question to sit with
What could you reduce while preserving the purpose and sincerity of what you are trying to offer?
Source and method
The Judgment and Image are classical passages from the Book of Changes. The English rendering and modern explanation are Meow Ching’s editorial work. This page covers these two passages; it does not translate the six individual line texts.
Read the classical text on Wikisource · Our sources and method