Gorge (29)
5
2
The Judgement
The Abysmal repeated.If you are sincere, you have success in your heart,
And whatever you do succeeds.
The Image
Water flows on uninterruptedly and reaches its goal:The image of the Abysmal repeated.
Thus the superior man walks in lasting virtue
And carries on the business of teaching.
Line Poems
- 6 - Bound with cords and ropes, Shut in between thorn–hedged prison walls: For three years one does not find the way. Misfortune.
- 5 - The abyss is not filled to overflowing, It is filled only to the rim. No blame.
- 4 - A jug of wine, a bowl of rice with it; Earthen vessels Simply handed in through the Window. There is certainly no blame in this.
- 3 - Forward and backward, abyss on abyss. In danger like this, pause at first and wait, Otherwise you will fall into a pit in the abyss. Do not act this way.
- 2 - The abyss is dangerous. One should strive to attain small things only.
- 1 - Repetition of the Abysmal. In the abyss one falls into a pit. Misfortune.
Commentary
This hexagram consists of a doubling of the trigram K’an.It is one of the eight hexagrams in which doubling occurs.
The trigram K’an means a plunging in.
A yang line has plunged in between two yin lines and is closed in by them like water in a ravine.
The trigram K’an is also the middle son.
The Receptive has obtained the middle line of the Creative, and thus K’an develops.
As an image it represents water, the water that comes from above and is in motion on earth in streams and rivers, giving rise to all life on earth.
In man’s world K’an represents the heart, the soul locked up within the body, the principle of light inclosed in the dark—that is, reason.
The name of the hexagram, because the trigram is doubled, has the additional meaning, “repetition of danger.”
Thus the hexagram is intended to designate an objective situation to which one must become accustomed, not a subjective attitude.
For danger due to a subjective attitude means either foolhardiness or guile.
Hence too a ravine is used to symbolize danger; it is a situation in which a man is in the same pass as the water in a ravine, and, like the water, he can escape if he behaves correctly.
