Upper Trigram
兌 Duì
Lake — Joyous
Lower Trigram
坎 Kǎn
Water — Abysmal
Classical Texts
The Goal
Kun is not failure. It is the condition of being constrained by circumstances that words cannot alter — and the hexagram's central teaching is that exhaustion tests character in ways that prosperity never can. Lake (Dui) above Water (Kan) shows the lake drained, its water sunk below — resources depleted, the surface empty while what sustains life has disappeared into the depths. The judgment contains a paradox: 亨。貞大人吉，无咎 — "success; perseverance of the great person brings good fortune, no blame." Success within oppression. Good fortune within exhaustion. Then the final clause removes the one tool that seems most necessary: 有言不信 — "when one has something to say, it is not believed." Words fail. Explanation is useless. Justification finds no audience. The hexagram strips away every external resource and asks what remains. The Image text answers with the most severe instruction in the entire book: 澤無水，困。君子以致命遂志 — "the lake without water, Oppression. The superior person stakes life itself on following will." The phrase 致命遂志 is not hyperbole. It describes the condition where external circumstances have contracted to the point where the only freedom left is internal — the choice of what to remain committed to when everything conspires against that commitment. The first line shows the extreme of oppression: 臀困于株木。入于幽谷。三歲不覿 — "sitting oppressed under a bare tree; entering a dark valley; for three years one sees nothing." This is not temporary inconvenience. It is sustained deprivation of both comfort and vision. The goal of Kun is not to escape oppression but to discover what survives it. The hexagram regulates the relationship between external depletion and internal integrity. The sixth line signals the turning point: 困于葛藟。于臲卼。曰動悔有悔。征吉 — "oppressed by creeping vines; unsettled and uncertain; one says movement brings remorse, and there is remorse; but advancing brings good fortune." The bonds that seem to hold are fragile — vines, not chains. The oppression that appeared permanent was partly maintained by the oppressed person's own hesitation. When the mind shifts from endurance to action, the vines break. But this breakthrough is earned only by those who have already passed through the fire of genuine exhaustion without losing their essential purpose.
The Judgment
Fulfillment. Sustained orientation for the great person resolves well. No fault. Having words — they are not believed. Oppression. And it comes with fulfillment — but only for the great person. Everyone else just gets the oppression. No fault, but here's the kicker: you speak and nobody believes you. The oppression hexagram includes silencing. You know the truth, you say the truth, and the room doesn't hear it. That's not communication failure. That's the hexagram working as designed.
The Image
The lake without water: oppression. The realized person accordingly stakes their life on following their purpose. A lake with no water. The container exists but the content is gone. And the instruction is the most extreme in the book: stake your life on your purpose. Not 'try harder.' Stake your life. Because when the lake is empty, ordinary commitment isn't enough. The person who can look at the empty container and invest everything anyway has found something the oppression can't reach.
The Lines
Line 1
Buttocks oppressed by wooden stocks. Entering a gloomy valley. For three years, seeing no one. Stocks on the rear. A dark valley. Three years of isolation. No verdict — because what verdict would matter? The first line of oppression is the one where you can't sit down, can't see, and nobody's coming. The text doesn't tell you what to do because there's nothing to do. It just describes what it looks like when you're at the bottom of the bottom.
Line 2
Oppressed amid wine and food. The scarlet-sashed one approaches. It is supported to make offerings. Advancing: adverse. No fault. Surrounded by plenty and still oppressed. The feast is laid out and you can't enjoy it. But the dignitary is coming, and the instruction is: make the offering. Not advance — that's adverse. Just: prepare the sacrifice. The person oppressed in the middle of abundance has a specific kind of suffering that nobody sympathizes with. The text does.
Line 3
Oppressed by stone. Leaning on thorns and thistles. Entering the house, not seeing the wife. Adverse. Rock in front, thorns behind, you go home and your wife isn't there. Adverse. The third line piles every form of oppression into one image: the immovable obstacle, the painful support, and the empty house. The person who can't find comfort in any direction — forward, backward, or home — has hit the structural center of what oppression actually is.
Line 4
Approaching very slowly. Oppressed in a gilded carriage. Friction. There is an end. Moving slowly, trapped in a golden cage. Embarrassing. But — there is an end. Those last three characters change everything. The gilded carriage is the oppression of privilege: constrained by the very thing that's supposed to elevate you. Friction, embarrassment, slowness. But it ends. The text promises. It ends.
Line 5
Nose cut off, feet cut off. Oppressed by the crimson-sashed ones. Slowly finding release. It is supported to make offerings and sacrifices. Mutilated. Nose gone, feet gone, oppressed by the very people who should be helping. And then: slowly, release comes. The fifth line of oppression — the worst physical imagery in the hexagram, and the first mention of relief. It comes slowly. It comes through sacrifice. But it comes. The person who can still make an offering after losing their nose has found something the oppressors can't cut off.
Line 6
Oppressed by creeping vines, in unstable footing. Saying 'movement brings regret' — and having the regret. Advancing: resolves well. Tangled in vines, wobbling, telling yourself that moving will make it worse. And you know what? You're right — there is regret. But advancing resolves well anyway. The top of the oppression hexagram and the final teaching: the regret you feared is real, and you should move anyway. The vines only hold you because you're standing still. Walk. The regret is cheaper than the paralysis.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 47 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.
席多針刺，不可以臥。動而有悔，言行俱過。
The mat is full of needle pricks; one cannot lie down upon it. To move is to invite regret; word and deed alike transgress.
Read full commentary ↓
A lake without water transforming into itself: Oppression doubled. The mat is full of needles, impossible to lie down upon. Every movement brings regret; words and deeds both go wrong. This is the I-Ching's own warning for hexagram 47 taken to its extreme: the image of the lake drained again into a drained lake, oppression reinforcing itself. There is no escape because there is no change. The needle-studded mat captures the peculiar cruelty of a trap that punishes both action and inaction: one cannot rest, yet cannot move without making things worse. The only counsel is the hexagram's own judgment: the great man fulfills his fate and pursues his purpose. Even in double oppression, the sage does not abandon his will.
中文注释
澤無水，困之象也，困之困——困上加困，自我疊加之絕境。席多針刺，不可以臥——席上遍佈針刺，無法安臥。動而有悔——一動則悔；言行俱過——一言一行皆是過錯。此為困卦自變之極端：枯澤又化枯澤，壓迫自我強化。動不得、靜不得，針氈之苦在於行止皆遭懲罰。《易經》困卦之辭曰：「君子以致命遂志」——即便困上加困，大人亦不棄其志。雙重之困中唯一出路，在於不放棄意志本身。
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Lake (兌)
Same lower trigram: Water (坎)