Oppression (Exhaustion) - Hexagram 47

困 Hexagram 47 K'un - Oppression (Exhaustion)
		above: Tui / The Joyous, Lake



		below: K'an / The Abysmal, Water

CHANGING LINE:

Hexagram Forty-Seven/Line Three

Six in the third place means:
A man permits himself to be oppressed by stone,
And leans on thorns and thistles.
He enters the house and does not see his wife.
Misfortune.

This shows a man who is restless and indecisive in times of adversity. At first he wants to push ahead, then he encounters obstructions that, it is true, mean oppression only when recklessly dealt with. He butts his head against a wall and in consequence feels himself oppressed by the wall. Then he leans on things that have in themselves no stability and that are merely a hazard for him who leans on them. Thereupon he turns back irresolutely and retires into his house, only to find, as a fresh disappointment, that his wife is not there. Kongfu (Confucius) says about this line:

If a man permits himself to be oppressed by something that ought not to oppress him, his name will certainly be disgraced. If he leans on things upon which one cannot lean, his life will certainly be endangered. For him who is in disgrace and danger, the hour of death draws near; how can he then still see his wife?

'Baboon in thistles' - Stichting AAP - Almere Holland 2011
photo Lex van den Bos

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Hexagram 47K'un - Oppression (Exhaustion)

Hexagram 47
K'un - Oppression (Exhaustion)