The Abysmal Water
The Repeated Pit
In doubled danger, go through rather than around: water reaches its goal because it never stops.
Kan is one of the eight hexagrams formed by doubling a single trigram, which is why its title names the element: water over water, the abysmal repeated. The trigram holds one firm line between two yielding ones, a picture of the gorge or the pit, and doubling it heaps danger upon danger. The reading is not despair but instruction taken from water itself, which fills every hollow it meets and flows on without losing its nature. The Judgement makes sincerity the whole of the matter, promising success in the heart to the one who holds to it. The Image has the superior man persist in virtue and carry on the business of teaching.
Light
Teaches constancy and inward sincerity in danger, the courage to go through rather than around, and the persistence of water, which reaches its goal because it never stops.
Shadow
Danger here is doubled and can become habitual. The first line falls into a pit within the pit, and the hexagram warns of entrapment, and of the third line's position, moving forward and back with an abyss on either side. The Tuan is explicit that the water flows on and does not fill to overflowing, so the danger here is the pit rather than the flood.
