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䷜
Hexagram 29 of 64
The Abysmal
坎 · Kǎn
Water above water, the trigram of the ravine doubled. One of the eight hexagrams made of a single trigram twice, and the classic's fullest treatment of sustained danger.
danger
depth
persistence
sincerity
- King Wen number
- 29 of 64
- Above
- ☵ Kǎn · Water
- Below
- ☵ Kǎn · Water
- Composition
- Water over Water
- Lines, bottom to top
- Broken · solid · broken · broken · solid · broken
- Chinese
- 坎 · Kǎn
The Judgment
Repeated danger. If you are sincere, the heart gets through, and what you do is worth doing.
Success is located in the heart rather than in the circumstances. The danger is not promised to lift; your conduct inside it is what the classic guarantees.
The Image
Water flows on and on and arrives: Repeated Danger. So the noble person walks in lasting character and keeps up the work of teaching.
Water's method is the whole instruction: never skip a hollow, never stop, never pretend the ground is other than it is.
What it means
Kan doubled is the classic's study of sustained danger, and it does not pretend the danger is an illusion. The very first line falls into a pit inside a pit, and the last is tied up in a thorn enclosure for three years.
What the hexagram offers instead of escape is method. Water in a gorge fills each hollow completely before it moves on, never skips a step, and never misrepresents the terrain. From this the Judgment draws its central claim: sincerity gets the heart through. Not the body, necessarily, and not the situation, but the part of you that keeps making correct decisions.
The practical counsel is in the second line. Aim at small gains. In serious trouble the mistake is attempting something proportionate to what you want rather than to what is available.
The fourth line is the hexagram's quiet centre. A jug, a bowl, plain earthenware, handed through a window because the door is not usable. All the ceremony is stripped away and the relationship survives on the contents alone. The classic says no blame, and means that this is enough.
In a reading
The Abysmal as an answer confirms that the difficulty is real and probably repeating. It does not promise a quick exit.
Its counsel is to keep to small, correct actions, hold still when every direction leads back in, and maintain the essential relationships even in reduced form. Consistency is the whole strategy here: the same right thing, done again, is what water does, and it is how water gets out.
The six lines
Read a line's text only when the cast made it a moving line. They are listed from the top of the figure down, the way the hexagram is drawn.
-
Six at the top
Bound with cords and ropes, shut inside a thorn hedge. Three years without finding the way. Misfortune.
Danger that has become confinement. The three years are the classic's measure for a condition that has to be waited out.
-
Nine in the fifth place
The pit is not filled over; it is level with the rim. No blame.
The water reaches the top and stops. The situation resolves exactly, with no excess.
-
Six in the fourth place
A jug of wine, a bowl of rice, plain earthenware handed in through the window. In the end no blame.
Contact reduced to the essentials, passed through an opening rather than a door. Sincerity with no ceremony left on it.
-
Six in the third place
Forward and back, danger on danger. Stop and wait, or you fall into the pit. Do not act this way.
Movement in every direction leads back in. The counsel is to hold still until something changes.
-
Nine in the second place
The abyss is dangerous. Aim at getting small things.
The most practical line in the hexagram. In a bad situation, reduce the scale of what you attempt.
-
Six at the beginning
Repeated danger. One falls into a pit inside the pit. Misfortune.
The bottom of the figure, and the danger has a floor below the floor.
Related figures
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