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The Well48
Seek renewal and sustenance from shared resources and deep wells of knowledge. Nurture the source to ensure lasting abundance.
↓ Line 5
The resource is in excellent condition and provides benefit to all. It is a source of nourishment and refreshment.
↓ Line 6
The well is fully functional and accessible. It provides continuous benefit and is a source of great fortune.
↓ Repair18
Address issues; repair what's been neglected. Embrace responsibility to restore and improve.
48 The Well
Other titles: Welling, Potentialities Fulfilled, The Source, The Deep Psyche, "A resurrection or transformation. Generations coming and going and the continuance of life and development." -- D.F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Although a town site may be altered, The Well remains the same. Its water level neither disappears nor receives any great increase, and the people can draw from it freely. Misfortune ensues if the rope breaks or the bucket is broken before it reaches the water.
Wilhelm/Baynes:The Well. The town may be changed, but the well cannot be changed. It neither decreases nor increases. They come and go and draw from the well. If one gets down almost to the water and the rope does not go all the way, or the jug breaks, it brings misfortune.
Blofeld: A Well. A city may be moved, but not a well. [The building of a city depends upon ourselves; but wells cannot be moved to places where nature supplies no water. The implication is that our activities are limited by natural conditions.] A well suffers from no decrease and no increase; but often, when the people come to draw water there, the rope is too short or the pitcher gets broken before reaching the water -- misfortune! [What we desire is there for the taking, but we may not succeed in getting it.]
Liu: The Well. The city might be moved; but not the well. It neither overflows nor runs dry. People come and go, drawing from the well. The rope nearly reaches the water, but not quite; the jug breaks -- misfortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: The Well: amending the capital, not amending the Well. Without losing, without acquiring. Going, coming: Welling, Welling. Muddy culmination: truly not-yet the well- rope Well. Ruining one's pitcher: Pitfall. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of the life water coming from the depths that everyone may draw on. It emphasizes that maintaining access to this central source is the adequate way to handle it. To be in accord with the time, you are told to go to the well!]
Shaughnessy: The Well: Changing the city but not changing the well; there is no loss, there is no gain. Going and coming so orderly; when the drying up arrives one also has not yet drawn from the well; burdening its formed earthenware jug; inauspicious.
Cleary (1):The Well: Changing the village, not changing the well; no loss, no gain. Those who come and go use the well as a well. If the rope does not reach all the way into the well, of if the bucket breaks, that is unfortunate.
Cleary (2): … People come and go, but the well remains a well. Lowering the bucket to the water, if you overturn the bucket before drawing it up from the well, this is unlucky.
Wu:The Well indicates that the planning of a district may be changed, but the location of the well may not. The water level of a well will neither increase nor decrease from use. There are wells here and there. When one is drawing water from a well, if he tangles the rope and damages the bucket just before it clears the well, it will be foreboding.
The Image
Legge: The image of water over wood forms The Well. The superior man comforts the people and stimulates their mutual cooperation.
Wilhelm/Baynes: Water over wood: the image of The Well. Thus the superior man encourages the people at their work and exhorts them to help one another.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes water over wood. The Superior Man encourages the people with advice and assistance.
Liu: Water on wood symbolizes The Well. The superior man inspires people to work diligently, and advises them to help each other.
Ritsema/Karcher: Above wood possessing stream. The Well. A chun tzu uses toiling commoners to encourage mutualizing.
Cleary (1): There is water above wood – A Well. Thus do superior people comfort the people and encourage reciprocity.
Wu: There is water above wood; this is The Well. Thus, the jun zi encourages people to work for the good of the public and to help one another for a better life.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: Wood penetrates the water and raises it, giving the image ofThe Wellwhich gives nourishment yet is not exhausted. The dynamic central lines in the second and fifth places indicate that the town site may change, but the well does not. If the rope does not reach the water the well does not serve its purpose. A broken bucket brings about evil.
Legge: The upper trigram represents Water, and the lower symbolizes Wood, giving the image of a wooden bucket in the water of a well. What is said on this hexagram might be styled: "Lessons to be learned from a well for the proper government of a country." A well is to its users what a government is to its subjects, and if rulers would only apply the ancient precepts of government to the present circumstances, they and their people would benefit greatly.
In the Judgment we see the well remaining substantially the same through many changes of society -- a dependable source of refreshment to its users. As the fashion of the well remains changeless, so do the principles of human nature and good government. The value of the well depends upon the water being drawn up and used -- and so must the principles of good government be implemented.
Anthony: This hexagram usually indicates that we have a hidden doubt or fear. We may secretly disbelieve our path.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment: Amid the changes of life the only constant is the psyche itself -- to be alive is to draw upon its energy. The ego’s challenge lies in the correct comprehension of its images.
The Superior Man promotes the harmonious interplay of his thoughts and feelings. (Works on the integration of his complexes.)
A well is a universal symbol of a source of inner truth, and is often associated with a place that is sacred to the gods:
There he built an altar and invoked the name of Yahweh. There he pitched his tent, and there Isaac's servants sank a well. Genesis 26: 25
From the first well, which is of animal nature and deep, the father drinks, together with his children and cattle; from the second, which is yet deeper and on the very margin of nature, there drink only the children of men, namely those whose reason has awakened and whom we call philosophers; from the third, the deepest of all drink the sons of the All-Highest, whom we call gods and true theologians. Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa
Psychologically interpreted, a well symbolizes the continuously flowing unconscious psyche, the fountain of all awareness. In this hexagram each line represents a level within the well -- by extension suggesting a hierarchy of value in the unconscious. It is important to remember that not all of our inner images, intuitions or impulses come from the Self. Note that lines one through four all show the water of the well not being utilized for one reason or another -- only in lines three, five and six is it actually available for use.
In some sensitive individuals there is an awakening of para-psychological perceptions. They have visions, which they believe to be of exalted beings; they may hear voices, or begin to write automatically, accepting the messages at their face value and obeying them unreservedly. The quality of such messages is very varied. Sometimes they contain fine teachings, but they should always be examined with much discrimination and sound judgment, and without being influenced by their uncommon origin or by any claim by their alleged transmitter. No validity should be attributed to messages containing definite orders and commanding blind obedience, and to those tending to exalt the personality of the recipient. Roberto Assagioli --Psychosynthesis
The ego's point of view in relation to The Well is from the outside looking in – the insights emerge from beneath the surface of awareness and can be held in the light of consciousness only if one’s comprehension is able to contain them. If "the bucket breaks," our understanding is unequal to our observation and the insights are lost. (One might plausibly find the image for a cancer cure within one's psyche, but without a conscious frame of reference to acknowledge it, it would be unrecognized and lost.) Those who closely monitor their dreams know that there is an endless outpouring of strange images within the psyche which might be of inestimable value if only we knew what they referred to.
Wilhelm emphasizes the idea of "nourishing the people," which psychologically means that the role of the ego is to facilitate the cooperation of intra-psychic forces.
The solution lies, rather, along the lines of a harmonious integration of all drives into the total personality, first through the proper subordination and coordination, and then through the transformation and sublimation of the excessive or unused quota of energy. Roberto Assagioli --Psychosynthesis
Line 5
Legge: The fifth line, dynamic, shows a clear, limpid well, the waters from whose cold spring are freely drunk.
Wilhelm/Baynes: In the well there is a clear, cold spring from which one can drink.
Blofeld: The well is cool; its water tastes like water from an icy spring. [All goes well with us.]
Liu: The water of the well is clear and cool. People drink from it. [People will succeed in their undertakings and profit from them.]
Ritsema/Karcher: The Well: limpid, cold spring water taken-in.
Shaughnessy: If the well is crisscrossed with cold springs, drink.
Cleary (1): The well is pure, the cold spring is used for drinking.
Cleary (2): The cold spring in the well is drunk from.
Wu: The well water is fresh and clean. It is like drinking from a cool spring.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: This is indicated by the central and correct position of the line. Wilhelm/Baynes: Drinking from the clear, cold spring depends on its central and correct position. Blofeld: This is indicated by the suitable position of the line, which is central to the upper trigram. Ritsema/Karcher: Centering correcting indeed. Cleary (2): Balance and correctness. Wu: Central and correct.
Legge: Line five is dynamic and in his correct place -- the seat of the ruler. As a well full of clear water is accessible to its users, so should a ruler be to his subjects.
Wilhelm/Baynes: A well that is fed by a spring of living water is a good well. A man who has virtues like a well of this sort is to be a leader and savior of men, for he has the water of life. Nevertheless, the character for “good fortune” is left out here. The all-important thing about a well is that its water be drawn. The best water is only a potentiality for refreshment as long as it is not brought up. So too with leaders of mankind: it is all-important that one should drink from the spring of their words and translate them into life.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The natural-born leader performs wide and useful services for the people.
Wing: You possess all the potential possible for insight and wisdom. This gift is the mark of an unparalleled leader. Such abilities and insights, however, must be applied to your daily life in order to continue growing and developing.
Anthony: It is not enough to have the water of the well; to be of use we must drink it. If we have doubts about our path, it cannot work for us. We can only make knowledge ours by putting it to experience, and accepting the hazard of depending on it.
Editor: When our conscious attitude is open to inner truth, that truth is reflected in the world. The image suggests that an outer attitude reflects an inner reality. See line six for the subtle difference between the two images.
For when the surface of those waters is disturbed by no slightest ripple of thought, Then shall the glory of my Self, Which is thy true Self, Be mirrored unto thee. P.F. Case -- The Book of Tokens
A. Integrated energy is at the surface of awareness.
B. You have what you need to succeed.
Line 6
Legge: The sixth line, magnetic, shows the water from the well brought to the top, which is not allowed to be covered. This suggests the idea of sincerity. There will be great good fortune.
Wilhelm/Baynes: One draws from the well without hindrance. It is dependable. Supreme good fortune.
Blofeld: The well-rope lies unconcealed -- confidence and supreme good fortune!
Liu: The well is clean, without a cover. There is confidence that water can be drawn. Great good fortune.
Ritsema/Karcher: The Well: collecting, no cover. Possessing conformity, Spring significant.
Shaughnessy: If the well is arrested, do not cover it; there is a return; prime auspiciousness.
Cleary (1): The well is being drawn from; don’t cover it. Great fortune.
Cleary (2): Do not cover the well enclosure. There is nurturance, which is very fortunate.
Wu: The water is being drawn and the well is left uncovered. With confidence in its inexhaustible supply, people will have great fortune.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: This indicates the grand accomplishment of the idea of the hexagram. Wilhelm/Baynes: In the top place, this means great perfection. Blofeld: The supreme good fortune presaged here is in the nature of a great achievement. Ritsema/Karcher: Spring significant located-in the above. The great accomplishing indeed. Cleary (2): Great fortune at the top is great fulfillment. Wu: Great accomplishments.
Legge: The sixth line is in its proper place, but magnetic. If the general idea of the figure was different, a bad auspice might be drawn from it. But the water is drawn up and the well is left uncovered so that it may be used by everyone. "Sincerity" suggests that the supply is inexhaustible.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Siu: The man's inexhaustible and dependable inspiration is drawn upon by all with whom he comes in contact.
Wing: You can now share with others good, dependable advice and exceptional fulfillment. There will be supreme good fortune in your life.
Editor: The difference in meaning between lines five and six is a maddeningly subtle one. While five suggests that our conscious attitude reflects an inner state, line six suggests that inner and outer have become one -- the difference is between the reflection of an object and the object itself. Compare lines five and six in hexagram number twenty, Contemplation, for a similar subtlety of difference. In general the import is that everything you need to comprehend the matter at hand is available for your use.
In so far as every individual has the law of his life inborn in him it is theoretically possible for any man to follow this law and so become a personality, that is, to achieve wholeness. Jung -- The Development of Personality
A. Truth flows freely.
B. All the data are in -- now it's up to you to take advantage of it.
18 Repair
Other titles: Work On What Has Been Spoiled, The Symbol of Destruction, Decay, Arresting of Decay, Work after Spoiling, Fixing, Rectifying, Corrupting, Branch, Degeneration, Misdeeds "Can refer to heredity and psychological traits.” -- D. F. Hook
Judgment
Legge: Successful progress is indicated for those who properly repair what has been spoiled. It is advantageous to cross the great stream. One should consider carefully the events three days before the turning point and the tasks remaining for three days afterward.
Wilhelm/Baynes:Work On What Has Been Spoiled has supreme success. It furthers one to cross the great water. Before the starting point, three days. After the starting point, three days.
Blofeld:Decay augurs sublime success and the advantage of crossing the great river (or sea). [I.e. of going on a journey or of going forward with one's plans.] What has happened once will surely happen again (literally, "three days before the commencement; three days after the commencement"). [It would have been hard to make sense of these words, were it not that the Confucian Commentary on the Text clearly explains them; hence the liberty I have taken with the Text.]
Liu: Work after spoiling. Great success. It is of benefit to cross the great water. Before starting, three days. After starting, three days. [This hexagram implies that, although conditions are bad now, improvement can be expected.]
Ritsema/Karcher: Corrupting, Spring Growing. Harvesting: wading the Great River. Before seedburst three days, after seedburst three days. [This hexagram describes your situation in terms of disorder, perversion and putrefaction. It emphasizes that letting things rot away so they become obsolete is the adequate way to handle it...]
Shaughnessy: Branch: Prime auspiciousness; receipt. Beneficial to ford the great river; preceding jia by three days, following jia by three days.
Cleary (1): Correcting degeneration is greatly developmental. It is beneficial to cross great rivers. Three days before the start, three days after the start. [The way to correct degeneracy is not in empty tranquility without action; it is necessary to work in the midst of great danger and difficulty, to act in the dragon’s pool and the tiger’s lair. Only then can one restore one’s original being, cultivating it into something indestructible.]
Cleary (2): From degeneration comes great development, etc.
Wu: Misdeeds is great and pervasive. It will be advantageous to cross the big river. It would be advisable to begin an undertaking three days before Jia and examine the ongoing progress three days thereafter.
The Image
Legge: The image of wind below the mountain forms Repair. The superior man, in accordance with this, stimulates the virtue of the people.
Wilhelm/Baynes: The wind blows low on the mountain: the image of Decay. Thus the superior man stirs up the people and strengthens their spirit.
Blofeld: This hexagram symbolizes wind blowing at the foot of a mountain. The Superior Man, by stimulating people's hearts, nourishes their virtue.
Liu: Wind blowing around the foot of the mountain symbolizes Work after Spoiling. The superior man encourages people to cultivate virtue.
Ritsema/Karcher: Below mountain possessing wind. Corrupting. A chun tzu uses rousing the commoners to nurture actualizing-tao. [Actualize-tao: ...ability to follow the course traced by the ongoing process of the cosmos... Linked with acquire, TE: acquiring that which makes a being become what it is meant to be.]
Cleary (1): There is wind in the mountains; degeneration. Thus superior people rouse the people and nurture virtue.
Cleary (2): … Leaders thus arouse the people to nurture virtue.
Wu: There is wind at the foot of the mountain; this is Misdeeds. Thus the jun zi arouses the people and nurtures his own virtue.
COMMENTARY
Confucius/Legge: The dynamic trigram is above, and the magnetic trigram is below. Pliancy is below, and Stopping above: these suggest troubled conditions verging on ruin. But Repair brings order to all under heaven, and he who advances will encounter the business to be done. The end of confusion is the beginning of order; such is the procedure of heaven.
Legge: Repair means the performance of painful but necessary duties. It shows a situation in which things are going to ruin, as if through poison or venomous worms. In order to justify the auspice of progress and success, the duty of the figure is to rectify this and restore conditions to health. This will require a major effort, such as crossing the great stream, and the careful differentiation of the causes of the problem, as well as the measures taken to fix it. The attribute of the lower trigram is Pliancy, and the upper represents Stoppage or Arrest. Hence, the feeble pliancy of decadence is stopped cold by the immovable mountain. The three days before and after the turning point symbolize the careful attention and differentiation necessary for any rectification to succeed.
On the Image, Ch'eng-tzu says: "When the wind encounters the mountain, it is driven back, and the things about are all scattered in disorder; such is the emblem of the state denoted by Repair." The nourishing of virtue appears especially in line six -- all the other lines belong to the helping of the people.
NOTES AND PARAPHRASES
Judgment:Repair means to set your house in order. Analyze your choices before the renovation and evaluate their consequences afterward.
The Superior Man orders his thoughts and feelings, reforms old attitudes, and strengthens his will. (Psychologically, to "stimulate the virtue of the people" (Legge) is to rectify the components of a complex.)
To imagine any truly objective state of perception we must include all that exists: the entire cosmos. Each differentiation of this, from atom to galaxy, is one slice out of an infinite whole. As a portion of the entirety, we are always linked with our ancestors in an infinite web of relationships which includes our family history, our racial-cultural-historical heritage and Homo sapiens as a species. Though seldom aware of them, it is useful to remember these links. Emanating from an unfathomable complexity, their karmically-charged morphogenetic fields are constantly shaping our lives. It follows that, although we perceive ourselves as separate from our ancestors, the separation is a subjective experience which is true only in a temporally limited sense.
Every line of Repair, except two and six, shows a son dealing with the troubles caused by his father. This reminds us of the biblical curse:
For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. Exodus 20: 5
The father archetype has a wide range of meanings: this extends from the Primal Spirit ("God the Father"), to a prior cause or intent in the psyche which has engendered a present condition. Psychologically interpreted, it is this latter reading which usually applies. If a "father" symbolizes the cause, then a "son" is the effect. If the effect is imperfect, then to rectify it is also to rectify the original intent.
To a large extent our lives consist of well-intentioned but misguided choices which create less than perfect consequences. To modify our attitude or behavior so that it corrects errors in our original intent is to "deal with the troubles caused by the father."
For example: In a misconceived expression of affection, a parent allows his child unrestricted access to candy. As a consequence of this choice, the kid's teeth become rotten, and the only logical way to correct the original error is to now curtail his intake of sugar. The fact that this new choice will create stress in the relationship between parent and child is just a consequence of the original choice and has no bearing at all on what is correct in the situation.
In some situations this hexagram may be interpreted as a response to a karmic chain of cause and effect:
To harmonize with the Wisdom Teachings, the scripture should read that the karma of the "father" is visited upon the "child" unto the fourth incarnation, not generation. The mistakes you made in the last four incarnations may be visited upon you in the form of karma flowing out of the heart seed atom in the present incarnation. Thus what you "fathered," or created, in your last incarnation may be the source ("parent") of your karma today. You are a child of that parent today. You have inherited from that parent -- the you of the past, not your physical parents -- all of your characteristics, weaknesses and strengths. Earlyne Chaney -- The Mystery of Death and Dying
The interpretation of any oracle response can only be as profound as our minds are prepared to accept. As moderns we find it difficult to empathize with "ancestor worship," yet properly understood, it can provide useful insights into the Work. In the unconscious realm all time is immediate, not sequential, and the Objective Psyche consists of a non- temporal web of forces shading from personal to universal. This means that if we have a complex engendered in us by our father, for example, we can reasonably assume that he was passing on what he received from his own parents. In this way, the unresolved complexes of the ancestors shape our own personalities: they live in and through us right now, even if they had their birth in forefathers long forgotten. This is a kind of near-immortality: individuals may die, but beliefs, attitudes, complexes live as long as they have receptive vessels to inhabit. (This is probably the engine of karma.) To the extent that an ancestral chain of causality still motivates our choices, we are totally responsible for "setting right what has been spoiled by the father."
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEDITATION
Most people have some level of unfinished business with their parents: psychologists would have little to do if this weren't true. It can be a healing ritual to set up an altar to a deceased parent and meditate there on the stresses that still remain between you. To approach the situation without judgment, to realize (non-logically) that forces pre-existing you provoked the condition as much as your parent did, will elicit much insight. Be especially aware of the presence of the past and the illusion of linear time. (Is it possible somehow to be your own great-grandfather?) Ancestor “worship” of this sort can be profoundly therapeutic.