The Well is one of the I Ching's most concrete images, and the text uses it carefully. The water is not the problem; maintenance is. That distinction carries the whole hexagram.

The structure: Water over Wind

Wind below, water above. Wood going down into the water — the image of drawing from a source rather than creating one.

The Judgment

The Well. The town may be changed, but the well cannot be changed. It neither decreases nor increases. They come and go and draw from the well. If one gets down almost to the water and the rope does not go all the way, or if the jug breaks, it brings misfortune.
Judgment

The instruction is entirely about execution. The well is dependable; the failure happens in the rope and the jug. Almost reaching the water is not reaching it.

The Image

Water over wood: the image of The Well. Thus the superior man encourages the people at their work and exhorts them to help one another.
Image

The instruction generalises the image: the source sustains everyone, and keeping it usable is a shared task rather than an individual one.

The lines

  • Line 1 — One does not drink the mud of the well. No animals come to an old well.
  • Line 2 — At the wellhole one shoots at the fishes. The jug is broken and leaks.
  • Line 3 — The well is cleaned, but no one drinks from it. This is my heart's sorrow.
  • Line 4 — The well is being lined. No blame.
  • Line 5 — In the well there is a clear, cold spring from which one can drink.
  • Line 6 — One draws from the well without hindrance. It is dependable. Supreme good fortune.

The arc moves from mud to spring to drawn water — the source was always there, and what changes is whether it has been maintained.

In practice

This hexagram tends to describe resources that are renewable but not automatic: a skill, a relationship, a practice. The instruction is maintenance, not discovery.

Cleaning vs. drinking

Line 3 is the quietly painful one — the well has been cleaned and still nobody drinks. The text is acknowledging that maintenance does not guarantee use, and names that as a real sorrow rather than a lesson.

Line 6 resolves it: the water drawn freely, the well dependable. What was needed was not a better well but a maintained one.

Water over wood

The Image's arrangement is worth noting: the wood goes down into the water to reach it. The source does not come to you, and the hexagram is not promising otherwise.