Hexagram 47 for work
Hexagram 47 Confinement for work and career
At work Kun is the time when support or room to move has run dry: the lake stands empty above the pit. The judgment still says 'success' — for the great person who stays steady, and the Tuan locates that steadiness in the strong central lines at two and five, covered over but not changed. The explicit warning is against arguing one's case: 'to rely on the mouth is to be exhausted' (尚口乃窮). It is a season for doing, not for persuading.
For a project, a job or a negotiation, line two is the able person idle in comfort who should wait for the summons rather than hunt for it; line four is the senior slow to back a junior but who must not stop; line five is the leader confined by their own staff. Line one is lost in the dark and should stop moving; line three is forcing an immovable obstacle. A changing line below means endure and keep your bearings; above, the confinement is loosening and the top line says the exit is open to anyone who stops insisting it is shut.
The hexagram in brief
A lake with no water in it: exhaustion. Success is still possible for the great person who stays correct — words are not believed now, so prove yourself by steadiness.
Accept the constraint, conserve, keep your word and your cheerfulness; the way out comes through character, not argument.
The judgment
困：亨，貞，大人吉，无咎，有言不信。In (the condition denoted by) Khwăn there may (yet be) progress and success. For the firm and correct, the (really) great man, there will be good fortune. He will fall into no error. If he make speeches, his words cannot be made good.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 困 Confinement has its own page:
- 初六Six at the beginningsitting on a stump · the dark valley · three years unseen
- 九二Nine in the second placeconfined in plenty · the red sash arrives · do not set out
- 六三Six in the third placestuck on rock · grasping thorns · wife not seen
- 九四Nine in the fourth placecoming slowly · the bronze carriage · regret with a good end
- 九五Nine in the fifth placenose and feet cut · confined by the crimson sash · slowly released
- 上六Six at the toptangled in creepers · movement brings regret · repent and go
The same hexagram for
Questions
- What does hexagram 47, Confinement, mean for a career question?
- At work Kun is the time when support or room to move has run dry: the lake stands empty above the pit. The judgment still says 'success' — for the great person who stays steady, and the Tuan locates that steadiness in the strong central lines at two and five, covered over but not changed. The explicit warning is against arguing one's case: 'to rely on the mouth is to be exhausted' (尚口乃窮). It is a season for doing, not for persuading.
- What does Hexagram 47, 困 Confinement, mean?
- A lake with no water in it: exhaustion. Success is still possible for the great person who stays correct — words are not believed now, so prove yourself by steadiness.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).