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Bushi Zhengzong · The Orthodox Tradition of Divination
Golden Counsels · Seeking Rank, Holding Office and Seeking Wealth, Continued
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.
Seeking Wealth
One who keeps goods is called a resident merchant; one who carries them is called a traveling merchant. Both are planning a livelihood.
Milfoil is used for casting and turtle for divination: both serve the pursuit of benefit.
To ask good or ill, examine only Wealth and Blessing.
Wealth strong and Blessing rising satisfies public or private endeavors alike. Wealth empty and Blessing at Extinction makes every kind of operation go against one’s wishes.
Blessing without Wealth has particular hope if Brothers crosses or becomes heavy. Wealth without Blessing can still be sought if Officer moves.
Both Wealth and Blessing absent is like guarding a stump while waiting for a rabbit. Parents and Brothers both moving is like climbing a tree to seek fish.
The month carrying the Wealth Spirit means wealth will come within the month even if absent from the hexagram. The day injuring the Wife position means none that day even if Wealth is strong.
Repeated Wealth shifts back and forth and needs the Tomb or Storehouse to gather it. Without Ghost there is contention, and crossing or heavy is further feared for obstruction.
Excessive Brothers instead does not control Wealth. Brothers at Body must make one’s hopes difficult to obtain.
Wealth coming to me must be easy in the end. My going to seek Wealth must be difficult.
Body meeting strong Wealth is like taking an object from a bag. Self holding moving Brothers is like fishing for a needle at the bottom of the water.
Blessing changing into Wealth that receives generation brings an inexhaustible, rolling source of profit. Brothers linked with Ghost’s control makes repeated verbal disputes hard to escape.
Parents changing into Wealth means toil that brings gain. Wealth changing into Ghost requires guarding against loss, alarm and worry.
A Wealth configuration combining with the Blessing Spirit permits an abundant source of profit ten thousand times over. Year Ruler meeting Robbery Sha makes the whole year’s business profitless.
Self and Response combining in Void means a hollow agreement is unreliable. Penalty or injury to the governing person’s position means one goes seeking and does not meet them.
Empty and holding Ghost often comes from one’s own hesitation. The day combining with moving Wealth means another person holds it fast.
Reading note: The supplied 徒空 opening is retained through its empty-condition wording; no new line position is supplied.
To know on which day wealth is obtained, stay with generation, decline, strength and combination.
To decide when profit comes, examine spring, summer, autumn and winter in detail.
Partnership need not dislike Brothers. In a public office, why worry about the Officer line?
Practitioners of the various arts particularly welcome Ghost moving to generate Body. Wealth from the six domestic animals and living creatures especially welcomes Blessing rising and holding Self.
Self and Response both with Brothers means lending loses even the principal. Day and month combining means opening a brokerage attracts people who entrust business to it.
Reading note: 同人 is read in the relational Brothers sense, following the corresponding old lending commentary, not as a new hexagram title.
Response falling in Void disappoints the person collecting debt. Self meeting penalty or control means the gambler must lose.
Ghost controlling Body means a traveling trader must encounter thieves. An intervening line rising to harm Self means the person buying stock should be concerned about the broker.
Holding inventory welcomes Wealth still and Ghost quiet. Selling goods suits Wealth moving and Body rising.
Officer on the road means not going abroad. Ghost in the dwelling means not staying home.
No Wealth inside or outside, with Hidden also empty, must mean insufficient capital. Parents and Brothers with qi while Wealth meets Extinction makes contentment in poverty preferable.
Livelihoods have many forms, and divination has more than one method. With sincere, reverent prayer, one can naturally know the gains or losses beforehand.
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