The process of refinement is fundamental to the I Ching and Taoism and is tied to the concept of alchemy. The meaning of each hexagram does not come out of nowhere, it just reflects a particular expression within the 'whole' of the I Ching. The expression occurs due to a sequence of events that are implicit to start with and lead to the explicit expression. This path of development can only be described using the hexagrams of the I Ching (working on the principle that the I Ching manifests 'all there is').
Each hexagram is thus associated with a string of hexagrams serving as analogies for describing movement through the particular hexagram from a 'raw' state to a 'refined' state. At the level of hexagrams, each hexagram has 64 possible descriptions reflected in the 64 possible combinations of line groupings, each combination described by analogy to one of the hexagrams in the I Ching. (a detailed example of this mapping is given for hexagram 01 - see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/lofting/h01xln.html)
For example, hexagram 01 manifests the 'peak' of refinement of pure yang in its static form. In the string of hexagrams for hexagram 01, the 'raw' state, the low end of the string is held by hexagram 43, where that hexagram's under-exaggerated expression reflects a degree of 'pushyness' we can associate with the 'raw' nature of hexagram 01. As we move into the hexagram of 01, so the BASE line position is found to be best described by analogy with the under-exaggerated nature of hexagram 28, excess, which in this general, raw context is interpretable as simply 'too much yang'. As you move through the string of hexagrams so each describes, by analogy, in some way the path to 'pure, refined' yang. Since this can be too detailed for most we can take snapshots of this development where we only need to emphasise the hexagrams on the string that are linked to each single line position of a hexagram. Thus for hexagram 01, the base line position is linked to hexagram 28. The next 'snapshot' is the hexagram linked to line position 2 and so on. The resulting set of six hexagrams give you the general qualitative development from a raw to refined state in the form of a STATIC expression. We can in fact go beyond the static to describe the range of DYNAMIC expressions of a hexagram.
This process of 'going beyond' is reflected in the Quality Matrix associated with each hexagram in the form of analogy to all of the hexagrams associated with qualities 'beyond' line 6. The full range of the Quality Matrix string of hexagrams covers 64 possible combinations of lines (reflecting the binary values of 0 to 63), 32 of which cover the STATIC qualities culminating in the line 6 state where the analogy is in the form of self-reference, e.g. hexagram 01 is described by analogy to hexagram 01.
The remaining 32 hexagrams serve as sources of analogy in describing the DYNAMIC qualities, the transcending elements, of the particular hexagram under analysis, where, using hexagram 01 as an example, we culminate with the over-exaggerated properties of hexagram 23, reflecting the singlemindedness in dealing with 'chaff', its removal to focus on the wheat and so the 'pure'.
For more on these matrices see http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/icmatrix.html