Hexagram 29 · Kǎn 坎 Water (Pitfall)

習坎，有孚，維心亨，行有尚。

Kan upon Kan: there is sincerity, and the heart goes through. Going on, there is merit.

Zhu Xi glosses 習 as “doubled” and kan as danger, a pit one sinks into; its image is water. In each trigram a yang line is sunk between two yin lines, hollow outside and solid at the core, and here the trigram appears twice, danger on danger. That solid core is the sincerity of the text: something real at the center lets the heart get through even when the way does not. Acting from it, he says, is bound to achieve something.

水洊至，習坎。君子以常德行，習教事。

Water arrives again and again: Kan upon Kan. The noble person keeps virtue and conduct constant, and practices the work of teaching.

Water keeps arriving, one flow after another, and the sentence draws from it the worth of repetition. Zhu Xi applies it to both sides of the noble person's work: ordering one's own conduct and teaching others both need to be practiced over and over until they are familiar and settled.

Line 1, yin (初六)changing line in the shared reading

習坎，入于坎窞，凶。

In the doubled pit, it enters a hollow at the bottom. Misfortune.

Weak and at the very bottom of a doubled danger, the first line (初六) does not climb out but sinks further, into a hollow inside the pit. Zhu Xi says only that its sinking goes deeper still, and the text calls it misfortune. The picture is of danger compounded by having no strength to meet it.

Line 2, yang (九二)changing line in the shared reading

坎有險，求小得。

In the pit there is danger. Seeking, it gains a little.

The second line (九二) sits in the middle of the lower pit and cannot yet get itself out, so the danger is real. But it is a firm line holding the center. Zhu Xi reads that as enough to seek something and gain a little, though not enough to escape. Small, steady gains are what the place allows.

Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading

來之坎坎，險且枕，入于坎窞，勿用。

Coming or going, one pit after another. Danger ahead, and behind only an uneasy rest. It enters the hollow within the pit. Do not act.

Caught between the two trigrams, the third line (六三) is soft, off center and out of place, and every direction leads into danger. Ahead is a pit; behind is only something to lean on that gives no real rest, which is how Zhu Xi glosses 枕. The line sinks deeper, and the text says it is of no use to act.

Line 4, yin (六四)changing line in the shared reading

樽酒簋，貳用缶，納約自牖，終无咎。

A jar of wine and a bowl of grain, with an earthen pot added. The bond is offered through the window. In the end, no blame.

Zhu Xi follows the phrasing Chao reports from earlier scholars: a jar of wine and a bowl of grain, then an earthen pot added. The fourth line (六四) is next to the ruler, and in danger the soft and the firm meet. A plain rite, with sincerity added, makes the bond through a window: not the proper entrance, but the opening that lets light into a room. Hard at first, it ends without blame.

Line 5, yang (九五)changing line in the shared reading

坎不盈，祗既平，无咎。

The pit does not overflow; it has only come level. No blame.

The fifth line (九五) is still inside the pit, but it is strong, central and correct in the ruler's place, and Zhu Xi says the time to come out is near. The water has not overflowed; it has only come level. That is enough for there to be no blame: danger nearly passed, met with balance.

Top line, yin (上六)changing line in the shared reading

係用徽纆，寘于叢棘，三歲不得，凶。

Bound with twisted rope and placed in a thicket of thorns. For three years it cannot get free. Misfortune.

Here at the top, a soft line stands at the very limit of danger, and Zhu Xi offers no more than that as the reason for the image. Bound with ropes and placed among thorns, it cannot get free for three years. Unlike the strong fifth line, near its way out, this weak line at the end of the pit has nothing in itself to climb out with.