Hexagram 29 for work
Hexagram 29 The Pit (Water) for work and career
At work Kan is the hexagram of a project or a career passing through repeated difficulty: each obstacle cleared reveals the next. The Great Image draws the lesson from the way water flows — it moves on without piling up, so the superior person 'keeps virtue constant and practises the work of teaching'. The Tuan adds that kings and princes 'set up dangers to guard their states': in the right hands a hard passage is also a defence.
For a job, a project or a negotiation, the useful lines are the two strong centres: take the small gains available (line two) and be content to reach level before trying to overflow (line five). The fourth line shows how to keep an alliance alive through a crisis — plain dealing, delivered by the simplest route. A changing line in the lower trigram says you are still going in and must not thrash; one in the upper trigram says the structure will hold if you do not overreach, except at the top, where a wrong course has locked you in.
The hexagram in brief
Water upon water: repeated danger. With sincerity the heart gets through — flow like water, filling each hollow and moving on without losing your nature.
Don't panic and don't climb out too fast; keep inner honesty, practise with the difficulty, and keep moving.
The judgment
習坎，有孚，維心亨，行有尚。Khan, here repeated, shows the possession of sincerity, through which the mind is penetrating. Action (in accordance with this) will be of high value.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 坎 The Pit (Water) has its own page:
- 初六Six at the beginningpit within the pit · lost the way · sinking deeper
- 九二Nine in the second placesmall gains · still inside · strong at the centre
- 六三Six in the third placepits before and behind · unrest · do not act
- 六四Six in the fourth placeplain offering · through the window · sincerity reaches
- 九五Nine in the fifth placewater not overflowing · level reached · not yet great
- 上六Six at the topbound with cords · thorn thicket · three years
The same hexagram for
Questions
- What does hexagram 29, The Pit (Water), mean for a career question?
- At work Kan is the hexagram of a project or a career passing through repeated difficulty: each obstacle cleared reveals the next. The Great Image draws the lesson from the way water flows — it moves on without piling up, so the superior person 'keeps virtue constant and practises the work of teaching'. The Tuan adds that kings and princes 'set up dangers to guard their states': in the right hands a hard passage is also a defence.
- What does Hexagram 29, 坎 The Pit (Water), mean?
- Water upon water: repeated danger. With sincerity the heart gets through — flow like water, filling each hollow and moving on without losing your nature.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).