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Bushi Zhengzong · The Orthodox Tradition of Divination
Golden Counsels · Patterns of Illness
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
Patterns of Illness
Who among people is free of inconstancy? Illness is inconstant. What matters are greatest? Life and death are greatest.
Reading note: The opening retains the supplied 常 rather than replacing it with an unrecorded illness word.
Fire belongs to the Heart channel: fever, dry throat and dry mouth. Water belongs to the Kidney region: aversion to cold, night sweats and seminal loss.
Metal is Lung, Wood Liver; Earth means illness invading Spleen and Stomach. Declining, it is light; strong, severe; moving, it torments the body.
Kun is abdomen, Qian head, Dui throat wind and coughing. Gen is hands, Zhen feet; Xun means paralysis and intestinal wind.
Soaring Snake means alarm of the heart; Green Dragon, excess of wine and sexual pleasure. Gouchen means swelling; Vermilion Bird, disordered speech.
White Tiger means injury, and in women heavy bleeding or faintness from blood loss. Dark Warrior means depression and worry, and in men yin patterns or yin deficiency.
Ghost hidden in the hexagram means illness comes unnoticed. Officer hidden beneath Self means illness arises as before.
Hidden beneath Wife and Wealth must mean injury from hunger or improper fullness. Concealed beneath Blessing and Virtue must mean drunkenness and indulgence in sexual pleasure.
Parents means injury from labor; Brothers means the invasion of anger or food.
Officer changing into Officer means both new and old illness. Ghost changing into Ghost means a hundred shifting forms.
Changing forth into Parents documents at the fifth line means meeting rain on the road. Changing into Brothers at the third means catching wind within the room.
The original palace means falling ill at home, and below must mean internal injury. Another hexagram means contracting affliction elsewhere, and above must mean an external influence.
Reading note: The supplied 本官 is read through its original-palace/other-hexagram contrast as 本宮. The Chinese text is unchanged.
Above substantial and below empty means lighter at night and heavier by day. Movement generates and change controls: heat in the evening, coolness in the morning.
Water changing into Fire or Fire into Water means cold qi coming and going. Above clashing with below or below with above means internal and external affliction.
Fire Ghost clashing with Wealth above means retching and much vomiting. Water Officer changing into Earth below means urine does not pass.
Reading note: The compact 上臨 and 下直 phrases are read through their upper/lower contrast, without supplying a new line number.
For dental boils, Brothers and Ghost are Metal joined to a great baneful influence. For leg qi, Earth in the Zhen Palace changes into a Wood star.
Ghost in the Li Palace changing into Water leaves no doubt of phlegm and fire. Officer coming to the Qian image with double Wood confirms wind afflicting the head.
Zhen with Soaring Snake also moving means fright, palpitations and madness. Gen with Si or Wu crossing or heavy means boils, abscesses and toxic sores.
Reading note: The supplied 已 in the branch pair is read as Si, without changing the Chinese graphic.
No Wealth in the hexagram means food is not accepted. Ghost among the intervening lines means the chest and diaphragm are not at ease.
Ghost at Extinction receiving generation means illness settles and then returns. Declining Self entering the Tomb means thought is exhausted and unclear.
Ghost at Response combining with Body means contracting another person’s illness. Officer at Self injuring the Useful means an old affliction recurring.
Useful injured by Metal must mean aching limbs. The governing image controlled by Wood must show damage to skin and bones.
Fire as Hostile means the affliction of wheezing and coughing. Water coming to harm means a confused and distracted condition.
Void reaching the third means weakness of the waist in this illness. Officer injuring the upper sixth means the person chiefly has headache.
Wealth moving in the hexagram means either vomiting or diarrhea. Wood with Self means either itching or pain.
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