Chien / Obstruction
above: K'an The Abysmal, Water
below: K^ en Keeping Still, Mountain
In (the state indicated by) Kien advantage will be found in
the southwest and the contrary in the northeast. It will be
advantageous (also) to meet with the great man. (In these
circumstances), with firmness and correctness, there will be
good fortune.
Overall Meaning
Inhibition, obstruction, the symbol of difficulty
Chien is the symbol for incompetency in the feet and legs, involving
difficulty in walking; hence it is used in this hexagram to indicate a state
of the kingdom which makes the government of it an arduous task. How this
task may successfully be performed now by an activity on the part of the
ruler, and now by a discreet inactivity; this is what the figure teaches, or
at least gives hints about. For the development of the meaning of the
symbolic character from the structure of the lineal figure, see Appendixes I
and II.
The Thwan seems to require three things: attention to place, the presence
of the great man, and the firm observance of correctness, in order to cope
successfully with the difficulties of the situation. The first thing is
enigmatically expressed, and the language should be compared with what we
find in the Thwan of hexagrams 2 and 40. Referring to Figure 2, we find that
according to Wan's arrangement of the trigrams, the southwest is occupied by
Khwan ( ||| ) and the northeast by Kan ( ::| ). The former represents the
champagne country; the latter, the mountainous region. The former is easily
traversed and held; the latter, with difficulty. The attention to place thus
becomes transformed into a calculation of circumstances; those that promise
success in an enterprise, which should be taken advantage of, and those that
threaten difficulty and failure, which should be shunned.
This is the generally accepted view of this difficult passage. The
Khang-hsi editors have a view of their own. I have been myself inclined to
find less symbolism in it, and to take the southwest as the regions in the
south and west of the kingdom, which we know from the Shih were more
especially devoted to Wan and his house, while the strength of the kings of
Shang lay in the north and east.
'The idea of "the great man", Mencius's "minister of Heaven"', is
illustrated by the strong line in the fifth place, having for its correlate
the weak line in 2. But favorableness of circumstances and place, and the
presence of the great man do not dispense from the observance of firm
correctness. Throughout these essays of the I this is always insisted on.