In work & career
At work, the Well is your professional source: skills, reputation, relationships, the deep water others draw from. Tend it before you need it: learn constantly, mend connections, clear the silt of bad habits. Then draw and let others draw; mentoring multiplies the source rather than draining it. But protect the well from the careless who would break your bucket. The professional with a deep, tended well never lacks for work, and outlasts every drought.
48 · King Wen sequence
Hexagram 48 The Well — In work & career
井 · Jǐng · upper Water over lower Wind
The well is the common source: the water is the same for all, and what varies is the drawing.
The reading
The Well is the hexagram of the shared source. Water drawn up through wood: the village well that belongs to no one and serves everyone. The water itself never changes; what changes is the drawing, the rope, the bucket, the care of those who come. Your work, your wisdom, your character are such a well. Others will draw from you for years. The question is whether the source is tended or neglected.
Tend the well before you draw from it. Mend the rope, clear the silt, repair the walls; a neglected source serves no one, however deep the water. Then draw generously and let others draw too: the well is not diminished by use. But do not let the careless break your bucket. Protect the source with quiet discipline, and it will outlast you, watering generations you will never meet.
The image
Water rises through wood: the well, ever renewed. The wise encourage the people to work together and help one another, drawing from the common source.
Tend the common source, and all may drink.
When you cast this hexagram
- The need to tend the source before drawing from it.
- When the water is there but the rope is broken.
- The call now to draw generously from the shared source.
- The generosity of letting others draw from your well too.
In love and relationships
In love, the Well is the shared source between two people: the trust, humor, and history you both draw from. Tend it together; a relationship lives on what both partners put in, not just what they take. Mend the rope when it frays: repair the small hurts before they become silt. Draw generously and let your partner draw too. The couple that tends their common source never runs dry, and their well waters everyone around them.
In work and career
At work, the Well is your professional source: skills, reputation, relationships, the deep water others draw from. Tend it before you need it: learn constantly, mend connections, clear the silt of bad habits. Then draw and let others draw; mentoring multiplies the source rather than draining it. But protect the well from the careless who would break your bucket. The professional with a deep, tended well never lacks for work, and outlasts every drought.
When you have a decision to make
When a real decision is on the table, the Well asks whether the source can sustain it. Do not decide to draw more than the well holds; check the rope, the bucket, and the water level first. Choose the option that tends the source rather than draining it. Favor the sustainable over the spectacular. The right decision here protects the common good: what serves the source serves everyone who will ever drink from it.
The six changing lines
Read only the lines that came up moving in your own cast. If none did, stay with the hexagram as a whole. Each line below links to the hexagram that line turns into.
At the top, draw fully and do not cover the well. Sincerity kept open brings great good fortune to all.
Clear water, a cold spring fit to drink. At this central place the source is pure; all who draw are refreshed.
Line the well with brick and there is no blame. Quiet maintenance at this stage keeps the source sound.
The well is cleaned yet no one drinks; the heart aches. But the water can be drawn, and all will share the blessing.
The shaft shoots down to minnows while the jar leaks. Small aims and broken vessels waste the source; mend the container.
Mud at the bottom; no one drinks and no birds come. A neglected source at the start serves no one; clear it.
How it relates to the other hexagrams
These links are derived from the line structure, not from editorial opinion. Flip a line, reverse the stack, or read the inner lines, and you land on a specific neighbour.
Nuclear · 互卦
Lines 2–4 and 3–5 of this hexagram form another one. It is the inner situation — what is really going on underneath what you were asking about.
Complementary · 错卦
Every line flips. This is the exact opposite stance: the position you are not taking, which is often the thing the reading is contrasting you with.
Inverse · 综卦
Turn the whole stack upside down and you get this. The same circumstance seen from the other end — usually the person on the other side of it.
If one line changes
Same upper or lower trigram
Scholar's details
| Number | 48 of 64 |
|---|---|
| Binary (bottom → top) | 011010 (1 = yang, 0 = yin) |
| Upper trigram | ☵ 坎 Kǎn — Water, Water, Middle Son |
| Lower trigram | ☴ 巽 Xùn — Wind, Wood, Eldest Daughter |
| Key ideas | source, sustenance, community, maintenance, generosity, renewal |
Have a question of your own?
This page tells you what the hexagram means. A casting tells you which one you are actually in.