Ching / The Well

Forty-Eighth Hexagram Deep Waters Penetrated and drawn to the surface: The Superior Person refreshes the people with constant encouragement to help one another. Encampments, settlements, walled cities, whole empires may rise and fall, yet the Well at the center endures, never drying to dust, never overflowing. It served those before and will serve those after. Again and again you may draw from the Well, but if the bucket breaks or the rope is too short there will be misfortune.

Changing Lines Line Six This well is dependable and available to all. Supreme good fortune. Line Five The water in this well comes from a cool, deep, inexhaustible spring. Line Four The well is carefully retiled, and in time made pure again. Line Three This well has been cleansed, but no one will drink from it. This is a tragic mistake, for it has much to offer prince and pauper alike. Line Two Shooting at fish in the well puts holes in the bucket. No one can draw from this well. Line One The water in this old well has seeped into the mud. Not even the animals come to drink from it.

Go Back