井 The Well
Upper trigram: Water (water) · Lower trigram: Wind (wind)
Renew the shared source — repair the well rather than digging anew.
Modern interpretation
Tend the source everyone draws from: the team, the community, the shared resource. Repair the well — its rope, its walls — rather than abandoning it for a new dig. Those who nourish the commons are never forgotten.
The Judgment · 卦辞
改邑不改井，无丧无得。往来井井。汔至，亦未繘井，羸其瓶，凶。
“(Looking at) Zing, (we think of) how (the site of) a town may be changed, while (the fashion of) its wells undergoes no change. (The water of a well) never disappears and never receives (any great) increase, and those who come and those who go can draw and enjoy the benefit. If (the drawing) have nearly been accomplished, but, before the rope has quite reached the water, the bucket is broken, this is evil.” — James Legge, The Yî King (1882)
The six lines · 爻辞
Read from the bottom line upward. Each line pairs the received Chinese text with Legge's English translation.
井泥不食。旧井无禽。
“The first line, divided, shows a well so muddy that men will not drink of it; or an old well to which neither birds (nor other creatures) resort.”
井谷射鲋，瓮敝漏。
“The second line, undivided, shows a well from which by a hole the water escapes and flows away to the shrimps (and such small creatures among the grass), or one the water of which leaks away from a broken basket.”
井渫不食，为我心恻。可用汲，王明并受其福。
“The third line, undivided, shows a well, which has been cleared out, but is not used. Our hearts are sorry for this, for the water might be drawn out and used. If the king were (only) intelligent, both he and we might receive the benefit of it.”
井甃，无咎。
“The fourth line, divided, shows a well,the lining of which is well laid. There will be no error.”
井洌，寒泉食。
“The fifth line, undivided, shows a clear, limpid well, (the waters from) whose cold spring are (freely) drunk.”
井收勿幕，有孚元吉。
“The topmost line, divided, shows (the water from) the well brought to the top, which is not allowed to be covered. This suggests the idea of sincerity. There will be great good fortune.”
About changing lines
In a real I Ching reading, hexagrams are built by casting coins or yarrow stalks six times, bottom line first. Some lines come out “old” (unstable) — an old yin or old yang flips into its opposite, producing a second hexagram that shows where the situation is heading. The changing lines are the moving parts of your answer: read their individual line statements above, and they point to the direction of change.
Ask a question and cast the coins — free, with a plain-English interpretation grounded in the classical text.
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