Wood drawing water up from below: a hexagram of the well, which stays in place, serves all who come, and fails only when the work stops short of the top.
Kan ☵, water, sinking and perilous, lies above Xun ☴, wind and wood, whose quality is entering: something that goes down into the water and brings it up. Zhu Xi reads the hexagram as the well, a fixed source that a town may move away from but cannot move, losing nothing and gaining nothing as people come and go. Its danger lies in failing just before the work is done.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
井，改邑不改井，无喪无得，往來井井。汔至，亦未繘井，羸其瓶，凶。
Jing: a town may be moved, but not its well. Nothing is lost, nothing is gained. Those who come and those who go all draw from it as their well. Almost up, with the rope not yet fully drawn, the jar breaks: misfortune.
Zhu Xi explains the well as a hole dug down to water, and the figure as Xun, the entering trigram, going down beneath water and bringing it up. A town can be moved, but its well stays put; it neither loses nor gains, and everyone who comes and goes draws from it in the same way. The danger comes at the end, when the jar is almost at the top and breaks. His reading is that matters continue as before, without gain or loss, and that one must stay attentive so that nothing fails just short of completion.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
木上有水，井。君子以勞民勸相。
Water above wood: The Well. The noble person cares for the people and urges them to sustain one another.
Water above wood is moisture rising, which Zhu Xi takes as the picture of a well. He reads both duties as nourishment: the ruler sustaining the people himself, and moving them to sustain one another. A well serves everyone who comes to it, and this kind of care does the same.
Lines (爻辭)
From the bottom line to the top. In the line names, nine (九) marks a yang line and six (六) a yin line.
Line 1, yin (初六)changing line in the shared reading
井泥不食，舊井无禽。
The well is muddy; no one drinks from it. At the old well, there are no birds.
A well's worth, Zhu Xi says, lies in a strong spring and in water that rises. The first line (初六) is a yin line at the very bottom: no spring, only mud. People will not drink from such a well, and even the birds pay it no attention. It is the picture of something that has stopped giving.
Line 2, yang (九二)changing line in the shared reading
井谷射鮒，甕敝漏。
From the well's hollow, water spurts at small fish. The jar is broken and leaks.
The second line (九二) is strong and central, so this well does have a spring. But it has no partner above and leans toward the yin line below, so, as Zhu Xi puts it, its work does not rise. The water reaches only the small fish at the bottom, and the jar that should lift it is cracked and leaking. A good source is wasted when nothing carries it upward.
Line 3, yang (九三)changing line in the shared reading
井渫不食，為我心惻，可用汲。王明，並受其福。
The well has been cleaned, yet no one drinks. It makes the heart ache. It can be drawn from. If the king is clear-sighted, all share in its blessing.
Strong and correctly placed at the top of the lower trigram, the third line (九三) is clean water that no one has yet come to use. Zhu Xi says the sight makes people's hearts ache, since the well is ready to be drawn from. If the king is clear-sighted and draws from it to benefit others, the one who gives and those who receive share the blessing together. Readiness without use is the sorrow this line names.
Line 4, yin (六四)changing line in the shared reading
井甃，无咎。
The well is lined with brick. No blame.
The fourth line (六四) is correctly placed, but as a yin line it has no spring of its own. What it can do is repair the well, lining the walls so that they hold. Zhu Xi notes that this brings no benefit to others yet, only upkeep, and the text finds no blame in it. Repair work that no one sees still keeps the well a well.
Line 5, yang (九五)changing line in the shared reading
井冽，寒泉食。
The well is clear: a cold spring, and people drink.
Here the well is finally what a well should be. Zhu Xi glosses 冽 as clean, and the fifth line (九五) is strong, central and correct, so its benefit reaches others: the water is clean, the spring cold, and people drink. He adds that the image fits whoever brings the matching virtue. Clarity and usefulness meet in this line.
Top line, yin (上六)changing line in the shared reading
井收勿幕，有孚元吉。
The well is drawn from and left uncovered. It can be trusted: great good fortune.
At the top line (上六) the water has been drawn all the way up, and the well is left open for anyone. Zhu Xi glosses 'it can be trusted' as a source that never runs dry, and points to the broken top line, open like the mouth of the trigram Dui, with nothing covering it. A well fulfills itself by bringing water up, so even this yin line reaches the best outcome, though whoever receives it, he adds, must bring sincerity too.
If you drew this hexagram
Which text to read depends on how many lines are changing. With none, read the judgment; with one, read that line; with more, follow Zhu Xi's rules in the Yixue qimeng.
Text: Zhu Xi, Yuanben Zhouyi benyi (原本周易本義), Siku Quanshu Wenyuange copy, as transcribed by the Kanseki Repository (KR1a0031), corrected and punctuated by K-magpie. Translation and explanation: written by AI (Claude) from Zhu Xi's commentary and checked against the text and commentary. Sources and the list of corrections are on the Today's Hexagram page.