坎
GUA 29 · KAN
EXPOSURE
Overall Image (大象)
Water is ever arriving
Repeated exposure
The noble young one, accordingly,
continues in character and conduct
Practicing teaching and serving▼
Overall Image (大象)
Water is ever arriving
Repeated exposure
The noble young one, accordingly,
continues in character and conduct
Practicing teaching and serving
The water moves on continuously, filling up the chasms and voids as it moves, ever ready and reliable, like a stout heart. The little boat is pushed from the shoreline, just above the rapids. The commitment was made: there is no turning back. The boatman has narrowed his choices, picked a line through the water and stone. Then he does what is needed, as though life were at stake. It is not a time to be elsewhere thinking of options and other places to be. The best time to learn is when the subject is useful right now. The young noble encounters what lies before him, committed with all of his heart to the work, rising up to each new challenge. At this edge the will is to live.
Main Judgment (Repeated Exposure) (卦辞)
Be true
To keep the heart secure is fulfillment
Advance will have value▼
Main Judgment (Repeated Exposure) (卦辞)
Be true
To keep the heart secure is fulfillment
Advance will have value
The river knows its true path through the canyon. It will know without any question or doubt. This may be a little too perfect for us to attain, although we can learn to get closer by putting what gets in the way out of mind, stripping down to bare essentials, not giving up, not losing heart, accepting the canyon’s stone limits as handholds and places to stand. There is a great sense of freedom when all of the constraints are so clearly defined and the choices are simple. Life is starkened and vivified. Exigence shows the way out, the emergency, an urgency to emerge with a heart still pounding. This is how to make wishes come true: to give them no other choice. When we can’t afford to lose faith or heart, necessity makes all the needed connections. This is what leads to success. We use the situation at hand as though it could not be otherwise. We call out for reassurance between the canyon walls, but the echoes only mock us. Good fortune: there is something out there, not a dark and endless void. Exposure gets the blood pumping, brings out our best and resets the values into right order. Exposure and risk show the way to the way and attune us in to optimum channels.
Key Words (关键词)
Repeated, multiple, familiar with + crisis, risk, hazard, peril, exigency, trial, danger▼
Key Words (关键词)
Repeated, multiple, familiar with + crisis, risk, hazard, peril, exigency, trial, danger
Pit, chasm, canyon, gorge, strait, test; living on the edge, the way out is through Immerse, plunge in, undergo, commit, fall to, get involved; fear, vertigo, anxiety Concentration, alertness, challenge, unarguable constraints, the will to live, heart Flow, water’s approach to givens, necessity to perform; fluidity, grace, courage Enlightening confrontations, the hard fact as teacher; Castaneda’s having to believe
Structure & Connections
Structure Class
Kan-Li Family
This classification indicates the hexagram's role in the 12 Sovereign Cycle (Earthly Branches) or its structural family.
Astrology
note:Luna in Water
planet:Moon
element:Water
Tarot
card:Nine of Cups
suit:Cups
Qabalah
note:Yesod in Briah
sphere:Yesod
The Lines
11st • YangTwice the exposure
Going into the canyon’s inner recesses
Foreboding▼
1
1st • YangTwice the exposure
Going into the canyon’s inner recesses
Foreboding
29.1x Twice the exposure going into the canyon:
To lose the way (is) foreboding
Accustomed to life in the deep, habituated to troubles, he begins to feel at home here, only dimly recalling a time his life was not lived on an edge. He may get the bright idea that being careless is the new way to flirt with danger. To go still further down, into the inner recesses of the pit down in the canyon is truly a challenging venture. While the canyon might not protect him from rescue, getting lost where none with any sense go might provide such an insurance. A pit is a dead end, a grave situation. A pit is a trap, not a path, you cannot follow it through; it is a niche, but the wrong one to live in. Too deep can be just as bad as too high, or too far out or gone. Now to risk or gamble a life is a way to savor life, and a way out of mediocrity. But when it fails to work out as planned, our gene pool works more of this out of the system.
22nd • YangThe canyon holds risks
Seek modest gains▼
2
2nd • YangThe canyon holds risks
Seek modest gains
29.2x Seek modest gains:
(One is) not yet out of the middle
Were the abyss to take an interest in him, bring him his meals, or sing him to sleep, or save him somehow from his own overreaching, it couldn’t be the abyss anymore. It is free of all such cares and will leave all choices related to care to the small, living things it envelops. The young ones must learn about danger, why certain leaps are seldom successful, why they want to keep going one well-grasped hold at a time, with little successive successes, until they come out on top. Alone within the abyss, however, there is a friend to be found, in the echoes of our own struggles. In these we seek an encouragement to keep making encouraging noises. Splat is such a sad, lonesome sound when none are around to hear it. Collect all of your various selves and wits and hold them together. Eschew leaps of faith and jumps to conclusions.
33rd • YangComing and going, canyon after canyon
The narrow ledges are also headrests
Going into the canyon’s inner recesses
Is not at all useful▼
3
3rd • YangComing and going, canyon after canyon
The narrow ledges are also headrests
Going into the canyon’s inner recesses
Is not at all useful
29.3x Coming (and) going, canyon (after) canyon:
In the end, not much (is) accomplished
Halfway up the canyon wall, with abysses above and below, he finds a well-placed ledge. A long pause now would refresh our exhausted climber. His breathing has grown erratic, his heart is not pounding in rapture, his fingers grope more in alarm than with skill. This state does not conduce to survival, only to changing his noble self into a blot down at the bottom and a fading echo up at the top. Then all of the happy, encouraging echoes would cease. This should not be a struggle: we do not want to struggle with rocks the size of cliffs. Good nichemanship should be a skill and tool of the climber, to find a good place and to own it. Perhaps the ledge will go sideways: after all most of them do. What a perfect place to put a stone couch and rock pillow! And what sense to breathe deeply, get bearings and enjoy a great view!
44th • YangA jug of wine, a basket of rice or two, and utensils of clay
Handed expediently through the window
Ultimately not a mistake▼
4
4th • YangA jug of wine, a basket of rice or two, and utensils of clay
Handed expediently through the window
Ultimately not a mistake
29.4x A jug of wine (and) a basket of rice (or) two:
Firmness (and) flexibility meet here
On the brink of an important change, the critical thing is to cut through illusion and nonsense. The crises which crowd the time leave no time for the frivolous ceremony. Warrior, advisor, doctor and shaman will speak to the chief in urgent terms, devoid of allusions and protocols. They need their words to sink in right now, like stones, unbuoyed by etiquette. The knot on the gate is cut, not untied. The slow ones are knocked aside. Teachers don’t flatter students. Time becomes precious. He who has just a few moments left is rich with an unclouded mind. We cannot take the passive approaches: all of those rules slow us down. The petty tyrants are disobeyed now. Candor and frankness are welcome. The window lets in fresh air with the goodies, and new opportunities too. Must all of this weight, this ballast and jetsam, return?
55th • YangThe pit is not flowing over
To appreciate the level attained
Is not a mistake▼
5
5th • YangThe pit is not flowing over
To appreciate the level attained
Is not a mistake
29.5x The pit is not flowing over:
The middle is not yet complete
His level of fullness is still lacking flow. The waters are still collecting now, still well below the rim of the pool, and also collecting a bit of scum and debris. A great and flowing vitality will not be hurried along, although it would help to hasten a future fulfillment by plugging up a few leaks. Water will have the patience and presence to fulfill each need in due time and move along once each is done. Meanwhile, his mean level grows, slowly approaching the rim, his threshold to the beyond. A fool might exhaust himself here, foaming and frothing, trying to splash himself into the future, or leaping to hasty conclusions. Maturity is not just in fullness: it recognizes what is and starts there. Just think that this much time to fill up must mean a great capacity. Even the muddiest water, down in the smelliest pit, is rain again some day.
6Top • YangBound up with braided rope and stranded cord
Put away inside a thicket of thorny brambles
Three years without gains
Unfortunate▼
6
Top • YangBound up with braided rope and stranded cord
Put away inside a thicket of thorny brambles
Three years without gains
Unfortunate
29.6x Top six loses the way:
An unfortunate three years
Fresh from the pits, but still down there at heart, he keeps his heart pounding with wild actions and unruly behavior. Reaching the top of the canyon is only reaching the surface, not like the summit where hot blood is cooled by brisk winds. He said he was looking for limits and not just restraints. Private conviction now gets a whole new meaning, as he sets himself up for a tough test of wits: an impressive escape to follow this impressive trap he’s got into. He’s surrounded on all six sides now, while canyons only have two, but still with narrowed horizons and no view over the the top. Options narrow, space becomes time, a thousand tomorrows to plan and go over the lessons. The challenge he has set himself to, for the sake of advancing his purposes, leaves him three years in bewilderment, in which to review his progress.
Reference in Original Text & Resources
This content is derived from Bradford Hatcher's THE BOOK OF CHANGES: Yijing, Word By Word.
Original text for Hexagram 29 begins on Page 234-242.
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