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Bushi Zhengzong · The Orthodox Tradition of Divination
Golden Counsels · Seeking Rank and Holding Office
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
Seeking Rank and Reputation
One reads five cartloads of books in order to enter the halls of state. With ten thousand scrolls held in the breast, how could one willingly hide one’s tracks in garden and hill?
To assist the state, examine the hexagram of the Changes in detail.
Parents flourishing or supported means a composition that rings like metal when cast to the ground. Officer rising strongly means the household receives joyful success announced in gold.
Wealth crossing or heavy means no hope of selection like fine copper coin. Blessing moving makes a name on the golden list hard to expect.
Brothers in the same course is an unwelcome rival for first place. The day assisting Virtue is truly a good friend urging one to advance.
Two Useful influences clashing means examination topics unfamiliar and unpracticed. Six lines competing in movement makes rank and reputation uncertain and hard to attain.
The month controlling documents means the prescribed pattern is opposed and one is not selected. Self injured and Officer controlled means the path to office is blocked.
Wife and Wealth assisting Ghost while Parents is empty permits seeking a fortunate chance. Blessing and Virtue changing into Officer and combining with Body may also gain an examination name.
Appearing without favorable relation makes the ambition for blue clouds hard to fulfill. Hidden yet usable means finally leaving the plain-roofed dwelling.
The Month Commander controlling Body means receiving reprimand. Wealth generating Self must mean assistance with grain.
Parents and Officer meeting in threefold combination means success in successive examinations. Dragon and Tiger both moving means fame in one undertaking.
A baneful influence changing into Ghost that generates Body raises fear of being assigned blue garments. The year with an Officer that has qi ultimately reaches the yellow examination list.
Reading note: The blue-garment and yellow-list images are retained without assigning an unrecorded rank.
Illness obstructs the examination date when Void without another cause occupies Self. Joy comes to the examination hall when a favorably related Dragon combines with Body.
Wealth hidden and meeting Void means travel provisions must be lacking. Body rising and changing into Ghost means only the next examination succeeds.
Six Clashes in the hexagram makes inscription on the Wild Goose Pagoda difficult this time. Six Combinations among the lines means taking the head of the recommendation list on this occasion.
Parents strong and Officer declining: regrettably, Liu Kui fails the examination. Parents declining and Officer strong: lamentably, Zhang Shi passes.
Reading note: The supplied 劉蕢 name is retained as Liu Kui; no different historical name is silently substituted.
Response combining and the day generating must mean help through a worthy recommendation. Movement injuring and the day controlling means remaining at the study window.
Self moving into Void while Useful is strong turns a leopard’s transformation into a butterfly.
Reading note: The leopard/butterfly contrast retains the verse’s own images of transformation, without inventing a separate examination result.
Body’s palace changing into Ghost and supported by the month means the roc’s great journey advances step after step to the moon palace.
Examine further the original governing line influence, and only then discuss the person’s fortune.
Though these few verses generally discuss the gains and losses of obstruction and success, infer again through the eight trigrams to apply good and ill in detail.
Holding Office
Seeking worthy people for the state is the root of governing the population. In entering service as an assistant minister, emolument for support comes first.
Wife and Wealth flourishing or supported must bring a thousand measures of grain. Officer and Ghost rising strongly assures the honor of the first rank.
Descendants crossing or heavy requires concern about being stripped of office. Brothers moving requires guarding against reduced salary and grain allowance.
Parents in Void means no expectation of appointment or imperial decree. Officer hidden means no thought of promotion in title or position.
The Month Commander generating Body meets the gathering of wind and cloud. The Year Ruler combining with Self must receive the favor of rain and dew.
Self moving and meeting Void means not remaining long in office. Body empty without rescue means life reaches its end and wealth is endangered.
Reading note: “Wealth” retains the supplied 富 in this clause rather than silently substituting an office character.
Ghost changing into Blessing with Clash means being replaced in the post. Wealth with Tiger moving must mean bereavement leave.
The day clashing or controlling must bring much slander. Ghost and baneful influences injuring Body makes calamity unavoidable.
Brothers changing into a Ghost without favorable relation means colleagues do not cooperate. Year Ruler adding adverse penalty makes demotion and exile hard to escape.
The hexagram still and Self empty is a sign of retirement. Body empty and a baneful influence moving is a sign of avoiding calamity.
Ghost hidden beside Body, if not empty, means the black gauze cap on one’s head is not removed in the end.
Wealth empty and Ghost moving means reputation resounds, but bags and chests are empty.
Officer strong and Parents declining means a high appointment but a deserted official compound.
Holding censorial office comes from the month occupying Officer. Holding a deputy post comes from Ghost at a side position.
In soothing the common people, Brothers moving makes the foolish and stubborn hard to reform. In inspecting the four directions, an empty route means much fear of alarming anomalies.
On campaigns to suppress or capture, Blessing and Virtue rising means rebels and bandits are destroyed.
In guarding the frontier, the hexagram lines still means peace among both the Chinese realm and the peoples beyond it.
In presenting memorials or remonstrating, penalty or clash from Year Ruler is intolerable. For Buddhist and Daoist clergy or medical office, how could documents moving be fitting?
Infer in detail according to the duties of the post, and obstruction or success on the official path can be known.
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