Hexagram 55
Abundance
豐Fēng
☳ Thunder above, ☲ Fire below
Within, the fire of clarity; without, the thunder of movement: when lightning and thunderclap coincide, abundance arises, the brief high point in which strength and insight are at their strongest together.
The JudgmentAbundance brings success. The king attains it. Do not grieve; be like the sun at midday. The high point is there to shine, not to mourn its passing: shine now, decide now, share now.
The ImageThunder and lightning arrive together: the image of abundance. Thus the noble one decides lawsuits and carries out punishments. At the height of strength and clarity, the knots should be cut: lightning that sees and thunder that acts. Abundance is the season of great decisions; those who do not make them now will make them later in the twilight.
InterpretationMidday has been reached: the high point of a life, a work, an alliance. Everything is on, everything is there, strength and clarity working together. It appears on peaks you sometimes only recognize as peaks in hindsight, and that is exactly why the advice is so urgent: use it now. Make the great decisions while the light is full, share the abundance while it flows, finish what this is the energy for. And refuse the melancholy: mourning that midday is finite is wasting the midday. That the sun will sink is no tragedy but the reason to shine. Live the fullness completely and share it completely: then later, in the evening, there will be nothing to catch up on and nothing to regret.
Place in the sequenceWhere a person finds the place they are destined for, life becomes great. Therefore hexagram 54, The Marrying Maiden, is followed by abundance. It forms a pair with 56 · The Wanderer.
Nuclear hexagram
The nuclear hexagram of Abundance is 28 · Preponderance of the Great: The ridgepole sags: the load is greater than the structure can bear, and only an extraordinary step brings success now. It is formed from the inner lines and shows the hidden core of the situation.
The six lines
These texts belong to changing lines in a reading, from the bottom up.
Nine at the beginning
When you meet your destined ruler, you can be together ten days without fault:
going forward finds recognition. The meeting that belongs to abundance: strength finds clarity, the doer finds the seer, and together they can do what neither can alone. Such bonds have their season: ten days, says the image: a full cycle, not eternal life. Move together as long as the fullness lasts, wholeheartedly and without suspicion; recognition follows of itself. Its finite span does not limit its worth; it is precisely what makes it urgent.
Six in the second place
The curtain is so full that one sees the polestars at midday.
Going forward, you meet with mistrust and hatred; awaken him through truth, and good fortune comes. Eclipse in broad daylight: between you and the one you must reach hangs a curtain of intrigues, so dense that midday looks like night. Pushing and proving only make the mistrust denser. There is one way through the curtain: inner truth, lived so consistently that it awakens by itself what arguments cannot awaken. You cannot plead against slander; you can only stay so real that the lie becomes untenable on its own.
Nine in the third place
The thicket is so full that one sees the small stars at midday.
He breaks his right arm: no blame. The eclipse becomes total: even the small stars are visible, so dark has it grown at what should have been midday. And your right arm is broken: you cannot work, cannot intervene, cannot even defend yourself. The message is one of acquittal: this is not your fault and not your failure; nothing can be forced in this darkness. Wait out the tide, tend the arm, and know that middays return. Powerlessness without guilt is heavy enough without self-reproach added.
Nine in the fourth place
The curtain is so full that one sees the polestars at midday.
He meets his lord, who is of like nature: good fortune. The same darkness as in the second line, but now with a turning point: in the middle of the dark you meet the kindred person, the lord of like nature, and together the work can begin again. Dark periods have this hidden function: they teach you to tell unerringly who is of your kind. The bond sealed in the eclipse was chosen with night vision and therefore holds in every light.
Six in the fifth placeruling line
Lines are approaching:
blessing and fame draw near; good fortune. Abundance in its wisest form: the ruler who does not want to radiate all the light himself but brings the capable forward: lines are coming, people of caliber, and with them blessing and name. Accepting counsel and giving talent room at the height of your influence multiplies your light instead of using it up. Only insecure kings want to be the smartest in the room; the secure fill the room with smarter people and reap the fame as a matter of course.
Six at the top
His house stands in fullness:
he walls off his family, peers through the gate and no longer notices anyone. For three years he sees nothing: misfortune. The bankruptcy of hoarded fullness: the house full, the gate shut, and inside it grows quiet. Walling off abundance (wealth, knowledge, love) is in the end walling off yourself: first you shut the world out, then you stop noticing it, and after three years there is no one left to notice. Fullness that does not flow suffocates its owner. The gate open, the table set: that is the only way a full house stays full.