Meaning
The lake is above and the water is below it: it has drained out, and the basin is dry. The character 困 is a tree inside an enclosure, and it means to be confined, exhausted, at the end of one's resources. Legge's name for it, Khwăn, is spelt as he spells hexagram 2; the tones tell them apart, 坤 kūn and 困 kùn. The Judgment does not deny the hardship. It says that for the firm and correct great man there is still progress and good fortune, and adds a sharp detail: in such a time his words are not believed, so conduct has to carry him.
The Image draws the sternest lesson in the book: whatever it costs, the superior man holds to his purpose. In our own reading, 困 is about what is left when everything runs short, and about holding on to one's aim when nothing else holds.
The lines
The lines are a list of confinements. The first is "straitened under the stump of a tree", in Legge's words, and goes into a dark valley; the second is hemmed in among wine and food, until honour arrives. The third is hemmed in by rock and catches at thorns; the fourth comes slowly, held up by a carriage of metal. The fifth is pressed by officials in their scarlet aprons and finds release slowly. The top line is tangled in creepers on a high, unsteady place, and tells itself that moving would bring regret; if it regrets past errors and goes on, it does well.
Within 困 lies 家人, hexagram 37; its pair is 井, hexagram 48, and every line flipped gives 賁, hexagram 22.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 困 when the year, month and day leave 2 on eight, which puts 兌 lake above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 6, which puts 坎 water below. Which line moves depends on what the whole total leaves on six, and each line turns the figure into a different hexagram:
- Line 1 (初六) moving: becomes 58 兌 Duì, Openness
- Line 2 (九二) moving: becomes 45 萃 Cuì, Gathering
- Line 3 (六三) moving: becomes 28 大過 Dà Guò, Great Excess
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 29 坎 Kǎn, The Abyss
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 40 解 Xiè, Release
- Line 6 (上六) moving: becomes 6 訟 Sòng, Dispute
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 37 家人 Jiā Rén, The Household. Everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour has the same cast, so the figure describes a moment, not a person.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Trigram virtues (Shuogua, chapter 7)
- 坎 sinking, perilous below; 兌 pleased, open above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- middle son below, youngest daughter above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- ears and pig below; mouth and sheep above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Water below, Metal above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 48 井 Jǐng, The Well; every line flipped: 22 賁 Bì, Adornment sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 47, from 167° to 172.625° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Confinement: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 困 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “In (the condition denoted by) Khwăn there may (yet be) progress and success.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- A marsh with no water in it; the superior man will sacrifice his life to carry out his purpose.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 兌 above when the year, month and day leave 2 on eight, 坎 below when the same total with the hour leaves 6.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 47 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- A lake with no water in it: hemmed in and worn down, where words are not believed and conduct has to carry one through; the purpose is kept even when everything else runs short.
Claims about it
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Gate 47 of Human Design, at 167° to 172.625° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 47.
falseWhat the record shows: The wheel is Shao Yong's circle rotated by Ra Uru Hu in 1987 to 1989 so that hexagram 41 starts at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we found puts the hexagrams on degrees of the zodiac.
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Being born under 困 Kùn fixes a person's character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A modern reading with no source in the tradition. The Zhouyi has no birth hexagram; the cast reads a figure, not a person, and everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour shares it.
