Hexagram 48 - The Well

Jing:  A well at the center of a field; rise and flow of water in a well; life-water surging from the depths; to found a capital city.

Structure:  Wood 6 is below, water 6 above.  The wood goes down into the Earth to bring up water.

Ideogram:  Two vertical lines cross two horizontal ones, representing eight fields with equal access to a well at the center.

Situation:  The waters of life surge up from the spiritual depths.  The sage persistently maintains a clear access to this central life source for well-being and fulfillment.

The Tao brings forth the good and great, which we experience as love. The Tao causes all life to develop and flow within natural limits, regulating and organizing love, which we call morality.  The Tao transforms life so that each attains its true nature, which we call justice as each achieves its potential according to its being.  The Tao transforms life so that each accords with the great harmony, which we call wisdom, separating what endures from what perishes.  These immutable ways of the Tao create enduring conditions. 

All experience life as the same and abundant:  a vivid arising experience; a process of growth, maturation and decline; the giving and taking of life.  Generation after generation, life comes and goes, neither growing more nor less.  It simply is, an ever upwelling experience available to all.  The situation and times may change, but the foundation of life forever endures.

All life has a spiritual potential, the innate capacity to fathom the Tao and to manifest it within the world.  However, we have the choice to develop these virtues[1] or to ignore them.  All have access to inner spiritual energies, but only a few have the insatiable diligence and persistence needed to break through the barriers of selfishness and fathom their spiritual depths to bring forth the sacred into the world and fulfill their destiny.

Commonly within all traditional rural communities, the well provides the life necessity of water.  Anyone can come to the well and bring the water up from its source.  Likewise, anyone can draw from the inexhaustible wellspring of the sacred through the depths of their being.  Just as stone cases a well, deeply established virtues provide the means to a lasting connection with the springs of life.  Virtue develops as we move on the path away from worldly concerns[2] and toward benefitting interbeing. 

Yet dangers arise on this path.  We may fail in our education to penetrate the roots of life and remain fixed in greed and violence:  a partial education proves as good as none.  Some may suddenly collapse and neglect their self-development.  Those who nearly reach the culmination of the path but do not go all the way achieve nothing. Others wander in a muddy life without benefit, ignorant about how to develop themselves or that they even can. The sage persists in overcoming the attraction of worldly concerns, both in good times and bad, to complete the path.

Breaking through our self-cherishing to transcend what most consider normal and to face the spirit causes fear and doubt as we must renounce all defenses of conditioning:  comfort seeking, self-importance, aversion to others, addictions, and status-seeking. The wise learn how to persistently align their lives with the Way of humanity[3] despite all their disappointments and mistakes made along the way.  We must try again and again to break through selfishness, learning from our mistakes and move through the many dangers of the path.  For the rope to reach the bottom of the well and the waters of the spirit, seekers must have the strength and endurance to penetrate all delusions and to finally understand what is, the sacred within the moment.

Once we break through our selfishness and experience the spirit, then we have the duty to draw from the waters of life and bring them forth into the world.[4]  Those who have spiritually fulfilled themselves have the responsibility to develop others and to manifest good within the world.  We deepen our virtues to reach the waters of a spiritual life and then allow others to draw from us to quench their spiritual thirst. 

Sages fulfill their purpose by supporting those on the path and benefiting all.  Yet thinking we can do this before we have developed ourselves creates confusion.  We cannot teach what we do not know.  Only when we can develop ourselves both in comfort and adversity can we consider ourselves practitioners of the Way of humanity. Then others can draw upon the fruits of our development inexhaustibly.  The more others take from the sage, the more the sage has as the process of taking nurtures and renews.  

Not making this spiritual quest leaves life unfulfilled and of no benefit to others.  Time passes by those who throw their lives away and ignore their spiritual nature.  Others neglect their good qualities, and their insufficient development prevents them from accomplishing anything worthwhile.  A well achieves its purpose through its use.  People fulfill their purpose when they nourish and benefit others.  To be near attainment but not to have applied practice is like not yet having lowered the rope into the well.  If we do not make our practice available to others and the world, our practice has no value.

When sages finally reach the divine springs of life and can bring what they have experienced to life, they become the inexhaustible source from which others might quench their spiritual thirst. Just as the well’s purpose is fulfilled when others draw its water, so should we benefit from what sages have created, translating their wisdom into our lives. 

The wise do not permit the difficulties of the Path to vex them.  No matter how often we feel disappointed by what happens, we must start again.  Then this divine yearning for the springs of life remains alive, always in motion, always striving forward. Then even hardship, even misfortune, becomes a source of strength.  The spiritual life transforms the sage who then transforms the world through continuing the work of bringing the spirit to life in the world.

Sages take in the waters of life that well up from the depths, keeping a clear access to the central meaning of life and ever holding fast to the good.  A clear overflowing spring nourishes all without hindrance.  In this way, sages fulfill their lives.

We have the heart, mind, and hands to reach out lovingly to all life and Earth, caring for them in the most beneficial way.  The Way of humanity transforms our lives so that we may fulfill our purpose.