Hexagram 47 for love
Hexagram 47 Confinement in love and relationships
Kun is the lake with no water: it has drained into the pit beneath, and what should be full stands empty. The Tuan calls it 'the strong covered over' (剛掩也) and gives the test of character: 'in confinement, not losing what one is' (困而不失其所). In a relationship this is a strain where neither party can reach the other, and the judgment's sharpest line applies: 'words are not believed' (有言不信). Explaining and pleading make it worse. The Great Image asks instead for carrying out one's purpose at any cost (致命遂志): staying true when truth is not rewarded.
For a question about love, read the lines as degrees of confinement. Line three is the hardest: pushing on rock, coming home to no one. Line four is the partner who is slow to come but does come. Line five is hemmed in by those closest. The top line is the bond held only by fear. A changing line in the lower trigram, the pit, means the constraint is deep and the counsel is to endure; in the upper trigram, the lake, release is possible and the question is patience versus a decision.
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
- Is hexagram 47, Confinement, a good sign for love?
- Kun is the lake with no water: it has drained into the pit beneath, and what should be full stands empty. The Tuan calls it 'the strong covered over' (剛掩也) and gives the test of character: 'in confinement, not losing what one is' (困而不失其所). In a relationship this is a strain where neither party can reach the other, and the judgment's sharpest line applies: 'words are not believed' (有言不信). Explaining and pleading make it worse. The Great Image asks instead for carrying out one's purpose at any cost (致命遂志): staying true when truth is not rewarded.
- 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).