Upper Trigram
坎 Kǎn
Water — Abysmal
Lower Trigram
巽 Xùn
Wind — Gentle
Classical Texts
The Goal
Jing is not about water. It is about the unchanging source that sustains a changing world — the structure that stays constant while everything around it turns over. Water (Kan) above Wood (Xun) shows water drawn up through wood: the rope and bucket bringing what lies deep to whoever needs it at the surface. The judgment is among the longest in the book, and every clause is structural: 改邑不改井。无喪无得。往來井井。汔至亦未繘井，羸其瓶，凶 — "the town may be moved, the well cannot; it neither loses nor gains; people come and go, and the well is the well; if the rope nearly reaches but does not, or the jug breaks, misfortune." Towns change; the well does not. Populations pass through; the well serves them all the same. Two failures are fatal, and both are on the drawer's side: the rope that almost reaches, and the vessel that cannot hold what it draws. The Image extends the well into a principle of organisation: 木上有水，井；君子以勞民勸相 — "water above wood: the Well. The superior person encourages the people in their labour and urges them to help one another." A well works only as shared infrastructure. The character 井 draws the timber frame of the well-crib, and the Zhou 井田 land system took its name from the same grid — nine plots, eight households, the ninth at the centre worked in common. The shape of the word already assumes that a source is held jointly. 九三 carries the hexagram's grief: 井渫不食，為我心惻，可用汲，王明，並受其福 — "the well is cleaned and no one drinks; this grieves my heart; it could be drawn from; if the king were clear-sighted, all would receive its blessing." A purified source going unused — competence unrecognised, capacity that never reaches the people it could serve. That is the specific tragedy the hexagram names, and it is stated in the first person — 為我心惻, this grieves *my* heart — which is rare enough in the line texts to register. The goal of Jing is to establish that some structures must be maintained across every political and personal change, and that their whole value lies in being reachable. It follows Kun in the sequence: after exhaustion has drained every surface resource, one must go deeper, to what neither increases nor decreases. 上六 shows the well perfected: 井收勿幕，有孚元吉 — "the well is drawn from and not covered; there is sincerity, supreme good fortune." No lid, no gatekeeping. The source exists not for its keeper but for whoever comes with a rope that reaches and a jug that holds.
The Judgment
The town may change but the well does not change. Neither losing nor gaining. Coming and going — the well is the well. Almost reaching, yet not quite drawing the rope to the well, or breaking the bucket: adverse. The town changes. The well doesn't. People come and go. The well stays. It doesn't increase, doesn't decrease. And then the warning: almost getting there but not quite — the rope too short, the bucket broken — that's adverse. The well hexagram is about the resource that's always available and the hundred ways you can fail to reach it. The water is there. The question is whether you are.
The Image
Wood above water: the well. The realized person accordingly encourages the people in their work and urges mutual assistance. Wood drawing water upward — that's the well mechanism. And the instruction is about community: encourage the people, urge them to help each other. Because a well serves everyone. The person who understands the well understands that the deepest resource is shared or it's nothing. A private well is a contradiction.
The Lines
Line 1
The well is muddy. Not consumed. An old well with no creatures. Mud. Nothing drinks here. Not even animals visit this well. No verdict — just abandonment. The well exists and nobody uses it. The first line is about the resource that has been neglected so long it became useless. Not because the water dried up. Because the mud was never cleared. Neglect doesn't drain a well. It buries it.
Line 2
The well valley shoots fish. The jug is cracked and leaks. Shooting fish at the bottom of the well with a broken jug. The water is there but the vessel can't hold it. The infrastructure failed — not the source. The second line of the well, and the problem isn't shortage. It's delivery. The person with good water and a leaking bucket has the most frustrating problem in the book: everything you need, nothing you can carry.
Line 3
The well is cleaned but no one drinks. This is my heart's sorrow. It could be drawn from. If the king were clear-sighted, all could share the blessing. Clean well. Clear water. Nobody drinks. And the text says: this is my heart's sorrow. The most personal line in the entire book — the only time the I-Ching sounds like it's about to cry. The well was purified and the world walked past. If the king noticed, everyone would benefit. But the king doesn't notice. The well waits.
Line 4
The well is being lined with stone. No fault. Relining the well. No fault. The shortest line in the well hexagram, and it's about maintenance. Not the discovery of water, not the crisis of drought — the boring work of relining the walls. No fault. Because the person who repairs the infrastructure while no one's watching is doing the work that makes every other line possible.
Line 5
The well is clear. A cold spring to drink from. Clear well. Cold spring. Drinkable. No verdict — just the image of what a well is supposed to be. The fifth line, and the well has finally reached its purpose. Clean water, available, cold, real. The text doesn't add 'resolves well' because the well itself is the resolution. When the water is clear, the commentary becomes unnecessary.
Line 6
The well is full — do not cover it. Having sincerity: supremely resolves well. The well is full and the instruction is: don't cover it. Don't restrict access, don't gate it, don't put a lid on it. Leave it open. Having sincerity: supremely resolves well. The top of the well hexagram and the final teaching: the well that serves everyone without restriction is the one that receives the highest verdict. The well was always meant to be open. The cover was always the mistake.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 48 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.
躓跛未起失利後市不得磨子
Stumbling and lame, unable to rise; arriving late at the market, he loses his profit and cannot catch the deer.
Read full commentary ↓
Water drawn up through wood — but the well gazes into its own reflection and sees only stagnation. Stumbling and lame, unable to rise, one arrives too late at the market and fails to catch the young deer. The doubled well (source and target identical) intensifies the hexagram's inherent danger: a well that never changes, never moves, risks becoming a trap rather than a resource. The lame figure who misses the market recalls the well's line texts about fouled water and unused potential. From The Well to The Well, the pattern is self-referential: without transformation, the well's virtue calcifies. What should nourish becomes a prison of repetition, and opportunity slips away while the structure remains frozen in place.
中文註釋
木上有水，井觀自身之影而見停滯——同卦相變，不動之極。躓跛未起——跌倒不能站起，失利後市——趕到集市時好物已售罄，不得鹿子。井變井，同卦重疊強化其固有之險：井不遷不變，水不流則腐。跛者失市如井爻辭「井泥不食」——潛力在而不能發揮。從井至井，無變化則井德僵固：養人者反成重複之牢籠，水清則養，水滯則害。
Jiao Shi Yi Lin 《焦氏易林》, manuscript from the Wenyuan Pavilion Siku Quanshu, Qianlong period, Qing dynasty.
National Palace Museum, accession nos. 故庫017987–017990
Fascicle 4, page 41
Read from the manuscript leaf
Shown unpunctuated, as in the manuscript.
About this reading
Read from the scanned leaf.
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Water (坎)
Same lower trigram: Wind (巽)