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Bushi Zhengzong · The Orthodox Tradition of Divination
Golden Counsels · General Judgment
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
Golden Counsels · Direct Explanation of the General Judgment, the Rhapsody of a Thousand Gold Pieces
Reading note: Many clauses in the supplied text end with question-mark separators. These are punctuated according to the sentence, without turning every maxim into a question. Blessing and Blessing-and-Virtue retain the abbreviated 福 and 福德 expressions used alongside Descendants.
Movement and stillness, yin and yang, repeatedly shift and change. Though the myriad images are tangled, one principle must connect them all.
People differ as worthy or unworthy; hexagrams differ through excess or insufficiency. Reduce what is excessive, and it succeeds; increase what is insufficient, and it benefits.
Generation, support, assistance and combination are timely rain nourishing seedlings. Control, harm, penalty and clash are autumn frost killing grass. Birth and Imperial Peak rival the garden of Golden Valley; Death, Tomb, Extinction and Void are the land of hell.
The day governs the six lines: welcome its destroying Xiang to secure Liu. The Month Commander is the governing thread of all hexagrams: how could it assist Jie in tyranny? Most unwelcome is the Year Ruler, which should be still rather than move. Most important is the Body position, which welcomes support and dislikes injury.
Self is oneself, Response another: agreement is greatly desirable. Movement is the beginning, change the ending: mutual contention is most feared.
Injury at Response is unfavorable for another person’s affairs. If Self is restrained, how could it suit one’s own undertaking?
If Self and Response are both empty, people lack reliability. If inner and outer compete in moving, the matter must turn turbulent.
If Self crosses or becomes heavy, both eyes look toward the horse’s head. If Response moves, the whole heart seems entrusted to a climbing ape.
Reading note: The horse-head and climbing-ape comparisons are retained as the verse’s own images, without replacing them with a different event.
When the Useful Spirit has qi and no other affliction, all undertakings succeed. If the governing image merely remains in name and is further injured, no undertaking is fulfilled.
An injury requires rescue; without an affliction, do not fall into Void. Void encountering Clash becomes usable; combination encountering break achieves nothing.
Empty itself and changing into Void must bring ill and blame. Penalty joined with combination, control joined with combination: discord and impropriety appear in the end.
A moving line encountering combination is bound. A still line receiving Clash secretly rises. Entering the Tomb makes control difficult; carrying strength, it is not empty.
With assistance and support, even decline, weakness, rest or imprisonment can be favorable. Intent on generation or intent on combination, it forgets penalty, clash, control and harm.
Distinguish decline from strength to understand control and combination; distinguish movement from stillness to determine penalty and clash.
Joining yet not joining, clashing yet not clashing: it is because an extra element is present.
Penalty that is not penalty, combination that is not combination: a branch influence is missing.
When a line meets the commanding star, things can hardly harm me. Hidden in an empty place, the matter goes against one’s wishes.
Without being drawn forth, the Hidden remains futile; without pushing aside the Flying, effort is likewise wasted.
A Hidden Spirit beneath Void is easy to draw forth; a weak governing influence under control is difficult to sustain.
When the day injures a line, the harm is real. When a line injures the day, it receives only the name.
The person in the Tomb does not emerge without Clash. Ghost at the Body gives no peace until removed.
When Virtue enters the hexagram, no undertaking fails. When the Avoided influence occupies the Body, obstructions abound and nothing is accomplished.
If a hexagram meets an ominous star, avoiding it brings good fortune. If a line meets an Avoided baneful influence, resisting it leaves no injury.
When the governing image rests or is imprisoned, fear penalty, clash, control and harm. When the Useful line changes through movement, avoid Death, Tomb, Extinction and Void.
Useful changing into Useful: useful yet not useful. Void changing into Void: though empty, not empty.
Nourishment chiefly means suspicion and doubt; the Tomb brings much obscurity. Changing into Illness means injury and loss; changing into Embryo means entanglement.
Reading note: “Obscurity” reads the supplied 暗味 through the Tomb comparison, without changing the Chinese graphic.
An unfavorable influence changing into Birth burns strongly and has not dispersed. A favorable influence joined to Bathing fails and does not succeed.
Beware of control turning back upon me; do not reverse Virtue to support another.
An ominous star is isolated and weak: fear the day joining to raise it. Useful lines are repeated: welcome their being gathered into the Tomb or Storehouse.
Obstruction in the affair comes from an intervening line moving; retreat and regret in the heart come from Self being empty.
When hexagram lines move, examine crossing and heavy lines. When movement and change are of like and harmonious phases, distinguish advance and retreat.
Do not judge a baneful influence generating the Body favorable; do not judge the Useful controlling Self unfavorable. Within generation, penalty and harm require two safeguards; within combination, control and injury remain one concern.
Penalty and harm should not occupy the Useful. How could Death and Extinction hold the Body?
Movement encountering Clash disperses the affair. Extinction encountering generation brings the affair to completion.
If bound by combination, it needs Clash and break to succeed. If resting or imprisoned, it must receive generation and strength for the affair to be accomplished.
A quick response moves and controls Self; a slow response is still and generates the Body.
If Parents is absent, the affair has no thread to follow. If Blessing is hidden, the affair does not accord with one’s wishes.
Though Ghost means disaster, hidden it still lacks qi. Though Descendants means Blessing and Virtue, too many instead accomplish nothing.
Examine Parents as the structure and order; discuss Officer and Ghost as calamity. Wealth is the spirit of Emolument; Descendants is Blessing and Virtue. Brothers crossing or heavy must bring many obstructions to an undertaking.
If the Hexagram Body is repeated, know that two aspects of the affair are mutually involved.
Tiger rising and meeting an auspicious spirit does not prevent the result from being favorable.
Dragon moving and meeting an ominous star cannot conceal the result’s being unfavorable.
Dark Warrior governs matters of thieves, but it also requires an Officer line.
Vermilion Bird is originally the spirit of verbal conflict, yet Brothers is also required.
Illness greatly welcomes Heavenly Joy; if it occupies an ominous baneful influence, sorrow must arise.
A journey most fears Departing Destruction; if it belongs to an auspicious spirit, benefit is obtained in the end.
Thus, how can the many forms of auspicious and ominous spirits and baneful influences compare with the single principle of generation, control, restraint and transformation?
Alas! For the interpreter, knowing beforehand makes the Changes easy. For the questioner, examining afterward reveals its efficacy.
Divination must have a sincere heart. What harm is there in a Zi day?
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