Hexagram 29: Kan

Water over Water · 坎为水 · Tendency: Inauspicious

Structure

• Number: 29 (King Wen sequence)
• Symbol: ䷜
• Upper trigram: Kan (Water)
• Lower trigram: Kan (Water)
• Lines: yin yang yin yin yang yin (bottom to top)

The statement

有孚维心，亨。行有尚。

——《周易》

What this hexagram indicates

This hexagram indicates many difficulties, like crossing a series of puddles, requiring careful passage. It's suitable to first stabilize your mindset, assess risks, then solve them bit by bit. The greater the pressure, the more you cannot break trust or make reckless promises. As long as you hold to principles, there is still a chance to pass through the danger.

A Buddhist reading

Facing danger stacked on danger, Ouyi Zhixu says there is nothing to dread. His point is blunt: the problem is never that hazards come in sequence but that no plan exists for getting out. The plan lies in the solid line at the center, that is, in trusting deeply that every situation is a display of your own mind. Once the mind opens, the road opens. Someone skilled at watching the mind, he adds, turns the blockage itself into the passage, and everything depends on using danger rather than being used by it. Constant conduct and practiced teaching he matches to studying without tiring and instructing without weariness. The top line warns that dull absorption, all stillness and no wisdom, never gets out of the three realms.

After Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655), whose Chan commentary on the Changes reads each hexagram as a stage of practice.

The statement is quoted from the Book of Changes, which is in the public domain. The English reading on this page was prepared for this library.

Related hexagrams

• Previous: Hexagram 28: Da Guo
• Next / Opposite: Hexagram 30: Lievery line changed to its opposite
• Nuclear: Hexagram 27: Yilines two to four below, three to five above

Related

• Liu Yao Divination ChartLiu Yao casts a hexagram about one specific matter and reads its structure. Unlike BaZi or Zi Wei, which describe a person, Liu Yao describes how a situation stands at a particular moment. This page walks through the full process from casting to attribution.
• Mei Hua Yi Shu CalculatorMei Hua Yi Shu is traditionally attributed to Shao Yong. What sets it apart is how freely it casts: a time, a spoken number, a direction or something noticed in passing will all serve. It attaches no stems and no relatives, reading the trigrams directly. This page covers casting through to the subject and object.