47. K'un/ Oppression (Exhaustion)

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_____ above TUI THE JOYOUS, LAKE
_____
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_____ below K'AN THE ABYSMAL, WATER
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The lake is above, water below; the lake is empty, dried up. Exhaustion is expressed in yet another way: at the top, a dark line is holding down two light lines; below, a light line is hemmed in between two dark ones. The upper trigram belongs to the principle of darkness, the lower to the principle of light. Thus everywhere superior men are oppressed and held in restraint by inferior men.

The rulers of the hexagram are the nine in the second place and the nine in the fifth. The idea of the hexagram is based on the penning in of the firm element. The second and the fifth line are by nature firm and central, and each is inclosed between dark lines. Hence both these lines are constituting as well as governing rulers of the hexagram.
-Wilhelm

Only joy can overcome sadness, but it’s hard to convince yourself of this.

47 K'un is the only hexagram in the second part of the King Wen sequence, which baoti trigram can't
be captured by, but can capture the baoti trigram of following hexagram in the hexagram pair. More
info about baoti trigrams: http://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/friends/showthread.php?p=50623

lienshan uch:

Comprehension from ten wings

Tuck says: :bows:

I would like to share my comprehension from ten wings:

The Chinese character K’un 困 is wood in a square, according to the common annotation in my study of I Ching, signifying ‘being besieged’.

The sequence: Ceaseless rising (46) will definitely lead to ‘being besieged’ (i.e. being exhausted and then be besieged). It will definitely return to the ground after being besieged at the heights; therefore the well (48) is granted (Remarks: the well is the deepest place in the ground where people can reach and after the marsh (47) is dried up, people drill the well (48) to get water).

Text: K’un, smooth progress. Persistence will be auspicious for the great lord, (with) no calamity. Whatever one says won’t be believed.

Confucian’s remarks: K’un; rigidity is shaded. Peril with joy, being besieged but without losing that which can keep one progressing smoothly; it must be a gentleman. Persistence will be auspicious for the great lord; rigidity is the axle center. Whatever one says won’t be believed, (as) rhetoric leaves it destitute.
A person is plunged into a plight but remains optimistic and performs what he should, so he must be a gentleman. Lines 2 and 5 are both the rigid axle center, i.e. rigidity, solid and moderate; the great lord who possesses resolution, fortitude and moderation, can remain persistent on his ground and maintain his aspiration in plight; it is auspicious for the great lord. The great lord can refer to the person who has made great achievements like Chow Wen Wong (周文王), who was imprisoned at Yu Li (羑里) by King Zhou (紂王) but maintained his integrity unchanged. Furthermore he inspired himself to overcome adversity and became more fortitudinous.
The bottom trigram Kan is sincerity & trust, and the upper trigram Duei is the mouth and can refer to speaking; there is no correlation between them, thus in the era of being besieged, it is no use to say anything, as no one will believe it; additionally due to the masculine being plunged in the feminine, the villain, argument will only make things worse.

Confucian advice to a gentleman: No water in the marsh; K’un. The gentleman stakes his life to fulfill his will.
The marsh is drying up; all life around it is about to die. The gentleman realizes that it is impossible to do anything more and acquiesces to the inevitable end of physical life; this inspires him to expedite carrying out his aspiration.

Xi Ci Zhuang (i.e. Confucius's commentary to the text tagging);
K’un can reveal differences in people’s virtue.
K’un signifies that one is plunged into a predicament but tries to make a breakthrough.
By virtue of K’un, one can lessen complaints
Line 3: Yi states: ‘Being besieged among rocks, crouching on caltrops. Entering the house, (but) cannot see the wife; ominous.’ Confucius says: ‘To be besieged by that which should not besiege him; his name is definitely ruined; to occupy (or to crouch on) that which should not be occupied; he is definitely in peril. Humiliation and in peril; death is near; how could he see his wife?’

The hexagram pair: K’un: ‘to encounter’, signifying that it encounters difficulty and opportunity; its reversed hexagram: the well (48) suggests ‘proceeding without obstructions’, as the well must be unobstructed so that water can be drawn.

The Sequence
If one pushes upward without stopping, he is sure to meet with oppression. Hence there follows the hexagram of OPPRESSION.

OPPRESSION means an encounter.

Oppression is something that happens by chance. The fact that there is no water in the lake is due to certain exceptional conditions.

OPPRESSION is the test of character. OPPRESSION leads to perplexity and thereby to success. Through OPPRESSION one learns to lessen one's rancor {bitter, deep-seated ill will}.
-Wilhelm

My take on 47 is that not only do conditions oppress you, but there's an inner sense of burden as well, and it's the inner dimension that both the greater challenge the opportunity in this. If you can deal with the inner oppression, the outer oppression ceases to oppress. Think: Nelson Mandela in jail. I think 47 is one of the more obvious big spiritual lessons in the Yi.

I look at the sequence and think how 45. Gathering Together brought everyone together, but even so, it still requires individual effort, individual determination to bring about change, so Pushing Upward comes next, The Little Red Hen being the role model for all the others in the group standing around doing nothing. But even the Little Red Hen gets tired, the seed Pushing Upward through the earth reaches that Darkest Before The Dawn point, Oppression, (Exhaustion).

The hexagram is full of danger in its structure - lake, with an abyss opening under it, through which the water flows off downward. Wind and fire, as the nuclear trigrams, are like-wise at work, oppressing the water from within. The forces trend in opposite directions. K'an, the lower trigram, sinks downward, while Tui, the upper evaporates upward. As regards the lines, the yang element is oppressed by the yin element. The two upper strong lines are hemmed in by two weak ones, and so likewise is the middle line of the lower trigram.
-Wilhelm

47 is one of the quantum hexagrams. The path between trigram lake to trigram lake. Lake is the trigram of the heart and the pericardium(the protector of the heart). Quantum trigrams give a deeper perspective, the energy of lake isn't changing but goes to a deeper level, and you can see the proces from a deeper perspective more to the core of your being.

If you don't see this perspective, you get an exhaustion of your own energy reservoir, if you start talking you can't stop anymore. But if you see what this proces is doing you will be calm and can still laugh with yourself.

Fascinating Frank! I have a couple of friends who once they start talking are unable to stop. It's so sad because they are both brilliant, but their need to control by preaching leaves them friendless. It Exhausts them and their listeners too. Interesting that Wilhelm specifically says in his comments on Oppression that at this time of adversity it is "Important to be strong within and sparing of words."

hi everyone

wondering how you see the picture posted by Luis in terms of 47 . .
Is this about the inner oppression of thoughts that need to be expressed
A process of going inwards in order to discover the right forms, the right words?
but then why is this called "Exhaustion"?
I see the left hand in a gesture of tension almost as in trying to hold on to sth, as if beside the calm appearance there is inner turmoil going on . .
Could that be because the hex talks about searching food for thought? trying to find the place of the Well (48)?
I don't have any experience with 47 as an answer in i ching but the image reminds me all too well what I've been doing intensively for the past 2 months: staying in over a stack of papers, trying to find a mental way out of the dark matter of thoughts . .
Would love to hear your thoughts on how that could relate to the texts . .

rodaki

It is a very interesting image, isn't it? Perhaps the artist has picked a visual of "writer's block" to describe a feeling of being imprisoned with no one to turn to accept one's own wits, and they not being responsive so one is left not knowing how to redefine the situation to improve things.
Sounds like your situation very closely mirrors this hexagram, rodaki. Hopefully as we go through it you'll find your situation transforms too!

yes, it does have that feeling! . .
it brings to mind one of those phrases from Beckett when in a state of desperation his characters always seem to end up saying
'I can't go on . . . I will go on.'

ok that might sound dark but in fact it can be the most optimistic phrase ever

I believe the subject of the card is dying. An exhausted life. Blank pages, poverty, loneliness. The contracted hand, in painful gesture, reaching for support. He seems to be giving up.

rodaki said:

I don't have any experience with 47 as an answer

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I would not guess this from your excellent examples and comments.

47 is when what is normally wet becomes dry, however that can apply. Old age makes the lake dry up, as do old thoughts and habits; and your replenishment through 48 idea is directly on the mark.

thank you Meng , I just meant that I haven't got it often in questions so as to see how it materializes as an answer from the Oracle, otherwise, yes, it feels familiar

I'm simultaneously watching a documentary on Leonard Cohen I just finished downloading and here is what he just said on camera:

"it is about the feeling of some mission we were mandated to fulfill . . . an being unable to fulfill it.
. . and then coming to understand that the real mandate was NOT to fulfill it, and the deeper courage was to stand guiltless in the predicament in which you found yourself . ."

nice huh?
Cohen himself practised the I ching and I often find allusions to it hearing his songs . .

and he goes on talking about his father's death as one of these things that cannot be disputed, not even judged . .

ok, maybe I'm just reading TOO much into this moment, if so please stop me!!

Hopefully as we go through it you'll find your situation transforms too!

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oh thank you Rosada, just saw this

. . but if this is about some form of 'death' it certainly does not look like a resigned one . . The right hand still holds the pen, there is no lying down to die, more like 'dying on your feet', a warior's death perhaps?

I'm really looking forward to see how this could unfold in terms of individual lines . .

How about this?:

You've written yourself into a corner and you don't know how to get out of it!

The man is enchained . Enclosed in a prison (maybe ?). The space he can move around seems that it is just this room. Maybe those papers are his freedom. He creates something by writing ? Maybe he is making his Joy list.

Campbell says : "Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”

Exhaustion feels like dying. Even the body reduces all the unnecessary function and supports the vital one. And it feels like prison too. The image of the hand seeking something to hold on is very powerfull !!!

Imo, there’s a danger in viewing 47 as an exclusively negative hexagram, and overlooking the necessity of going through times of 47. I believe there is no hexagram or change line that isn’t essential to experience, including that of sitting under a bare tree in a gloomy valley from time to time.

I like natural and impersonal terms, such as wet and dry, to describe hexagrams, as well as those terms which personalize, such as joy and sadness. Wet and dry, to me, just seems more natural, less humanly melodramatic.

I agree with that but when one is in a 47 situation can’t believe that , isn’t it ?

47 is not a nice place to be, at least at the beginning when you realize you are in such a situation. Then one should choose whether is going to dig to find water or not.
Maybe not a very good example, but during a writing class I attended sometime ago, the instructor put as always in a 47 place. The concept was to learn handle those dry periods. The were two alternatives. Stay frustrated because you were restricted or start digging. The second choice was very rewarding.

quick stop before start digging:
Definitely agree here on accepting the lows as well as the highs with the same knowledge that they are just phases to come and eventually go, even though sometimes it seems that the only thing that I can accept is that things will inevitably get a bit excessive

thinking a bit more on the quotes from Cohen, do you ever think that maybe some I ching answers are not given in order to be completely deciphered? Not saying that we shouldn't give our best to do just that, but do you ever feel that part of their significance is a certain resistance to clear-cut meaning? Are there answers that remained a bit incomprehensible? Can we be too oppressive in trying to extract a meaning legible in our terms?

This probably sounds too postmodern but it is also part of experience -especially religious one- the point of that which cannot be said, cannot actually be put into words -or can be, in return to a certain kind of death (the death of systematicity perhaps, or of explanative language)

Rodaki being familiar with most of Cohens lyrics I'm wondering in which songs you say he makes reference to the Yi ?

rodaki said:

thinking a bit more on the quotes from Cohen, do you ever think that maybe some I ching answers are not given in order to be completely deciphered? Not saying that we shouldn't give our best to do just that, but do you ever feel that part of their significance is a certain resistance to clear-cut meaning? Are there answers that remained a bit incomprehensible? Can we be too oppressive in trying to extract a meaning legible in our terms?


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Absolutely. Most of the answer of the Yi i received lately i would translate as "you don't know, you ain't going to know, stop trying to know, its not known....sod off and give me some peace..." I sometimes feel the Yi to be a tortured kind of genii incessantly plagued by billions of innane questions which for some reason he must answer till the end of time.....unless people again forget about 'him' . Living with the not knowing is the point to alot of the answers i think.

Maybe its for this reason i think one gets answers to practical questions more clearly than stuff like "why am i on the planet". 'Where is my wallet " is a known, a fact already made...there is a wallet and it is somewhere, but stuff like "why am i here" is an ongoing creative 'not known', which is why i tend to think its true that originally the Yi was used to ask such questions as 'will it rain' tomorrow'....god and now it has to to put up with stuff like "what is my path in life ' and it says "I dooon't know, you dooon't know, you do it as you decide to do it as you go along why ask meeee"

Trojan!! I get the same feeling out numerous times lately, good to know I'm not the only one!

as far as the Cohen songs take a look at:
"Teachers" (just posting those that make sense cause the song is rather long)

Morning came and then came noon,
dinner time a scalpel blade
lay beside my silver spoon.

One morning I woke up alone,
the hospital and the nurses gone.
Have I carved enough my Lord?
Child, you are a bone. (these remind me of Biting through and Skining)

I ate and ate and ate,
no I did not miss a plate, well
How much do these suppers cost?
We'll take it out in hate. (Nourishment)

"Stories of the Street"
With one hand on the hexagram and one hand on the girl
I balance on a wishing well that all men call the world.
We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky,
and lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye. (I can almst think of different hexs for each line)

"Take this waltz"
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and death
Dragging its tail in the sea (After Completion)

. . but I'm pretty sure that there are other examples, these are just from some favourite ones . . of course there's always a chance that this is only my impression, but at some points i find the allusions too clear to be my wild imagination


rodaki

rodaki said:

thinking a bit more on the quotes from Cohen, do you ever think that maybe some I ching answers are not given in order to be completely deciphered?

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That's another reason why I prefer to look at the IC's answers in their natural context rather than only in a human context. Answers to my questions can be more clearly deciphered when, say, I am a dried up lake bed or an enclosed tree, rather than when I am depressed. "Depressed" brings a whole wagon full of devils with it.

There are also layers of how things are and how they work, which are hidden to our four dimensional set of perceptions, but exist on a subtle and suggestive quantum level as potential. These answers can only be received with a mind which isn't limited to the outer layers of the onion, but is open to being moved, changed and even transformed by what one can not logically understand, but which can be activated through trusting receptive instincts, commonly called intuition.

I can only bow to that, Meng . .:bows:

still learning how to work with intuition . .