Decrease
The lake stands below the mountain — water drawn upward to nourish the heights, the lower simplified in service of the greater whole. What is being reduced here is not being lost; decrease in the right spirit and at the right time carries its own form of sincerity, and what is given genuinely reaches what it was meant to reach.
Structure
☶ Mountain
☱ Lake
Changing lines
When a three-coin cast produces a 6 (three tails) or 9 (three heads) at a given position, that line is in motion — old yin transforming into yang, or old yang into yin. A cast with changing lines yields two hexagrams: the primary describes the present situation, and the transformed hexagram (formed by flipping the changing lines) describes where things are heading. Together they trace a direction, not just a fixed state.
Cast this hexagram yourself on the I Ching reading page to see which lines are moving in your actual throw.
Related hexagrams
Hexagram 41 — common questions
What does Hexagram 41 — Decrease mean?
The lake stands below the mountain — water drawn upward to nourish the heights, the lower simplified in service of the greater whole. What is being reduced here is not being lost; decrease in the right spirit and at the right time carries its own form of sincerity, and what is given genuinely reaches what it was meant to reach.
What if my cast shows changing lines for this hexagram?
Changing lines (a 6 or a 9) mark the lines in motion — the specific aspects of this situation that are actively shifting. The hexagram that forms by flipping those lines describes what the situation is becoming. Reading the primary hexagram alongside the transformed one gives you a picture of direction, not just a snapshot.
How is a hexagram cast?
Three coins are thrown six times, one throw per line, building from the bottom up. Heads count as 3 (yang) and tails as 2 (yin). Each toss sums to 6, 7, 8 or 9: 6 and 9 are changing lines; 7 and 8 are stable. The King Wen sequence then maps the six lines to one of 64 hexagrams.
Hexagram 41 in the context of your actual chart
A hexagram cast by itself describes a situation. Orvela reads it alongside your birth chart, your current Vedic timing, and the moon — and remembers what this cast meant last time.