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Bushi Zhengzong · The Orthodox Tradition of Divination
Golden Counsels · Travel and Travelers Away from Home
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Travel
Without wealth and rank, how can one sit and enjoy splendor? Seeking profit or reputation, how can one avoid hurrying along the roads?
The road may stretch a thousand li: how could it be traveled in a single morning?
Who can know the good and ill along the road? The spirits give a reliable measure of the calamity and blessing within it.
Parents represents baggage: carrying Penalty, it is damaged and unusable. Wife represents travel money: at Birth and flourishing strength, it is ample for use.
Self weak and declining can hardly endure sleeping by the water and eating in the wind. Response in Void makes it difficult to hope that plans will be accomplished.
Still intervening lines mean peace along the road there and back. The Grand Year controlling or Clashing means travel and stopping are obstructed throughout the year.
Self injuring Response favors going, whether near or far. Response controlling Self is unfavorable, whether the journey is public or private.
An Eight Pure hexagram with chaotic movement brings ill fortune everywhere. Both intervening lines in Void favors traveling alone.
Self moving sets the departure date, but changing into Ghost means casting oneself into a net. Officer brings hesitation and shrinking back, but changing into Blessing means eventual escape from the cage.
A still line meeting the day’s Clash means departure for someone else’s sake. A moving line meeting Combination from an intervening line means staying because of a companion.
Self meeting Void particularly favors travel by people of the various professions. Earth meeting Blessing particularly favors an overland journey.
Reading note: The supplied second clause explicitly says Earth; it is not silently changed into Self.
A place of Ghost or Tomb is no place to tread. A direction of Wealth or Parents may be visited.
Officer with Dark Warrior inflicting Penalty or Control brings alarm over thieves. Brothers with Tiger Sha at a crossing or heavy line brings wind, waves and dangerous obstacles.
Wife coming to control Self warns against coveting unjust wealth. Wealth combining and changing into Officer warns against lingering over an affectionate woman.
Parents brings drenching wind and rain, especially unfavorable for a voyage. Blessing brings congenial companions, but visiting an eminent person instead becomes unfavorable.
Ghost on a Yin line in the Gen palace calls for caution over tigers and wolves. Brothers meeting Snake Sha in the hexagram calls for guarding against ruffians.
Ghost moving among the intervening lines means discord with companions. Brothers active on Self means much travel money is spent.
Only a hexagram without Ghost Sha allows one’s wishes to be fulfilled. If Blessing is absent from the crossing lines, how can one be satisfied?
Reading note: The supplied text says crossing lines, whereas a parallel classical transcription says the six lines. Its wording is retained.
The principal line moving and meeting Void means returning halfway. Wealth qi strong upon the Month Commander means returning with a full load.
If one can approach good fortune and avoid ill, why fear climbing heights or crossing dangerous places?
A Traveler Away from Home
Seeking profit and reputation, people forget the joys of their birthplace. With no news at home, one relies entirely upon the hexagrams of the Zhou Changes.
To determine the return date, seek the principal image. At a crossing or heavy line, the traveler has already set out; with the Useful line still, they have not yet thought of returning.
Control means speed and Generation delay; if I control the traveler, a meeting is difficult. At the third line as gate or the fourth as door, the Useful Spirit combining with Self means an immediate return home.
Moving and changing into a Retreating Spirit means the traveler starts coming but turns back again. Still and generating Self means they have not set out, but long to return.
Meeting a secret Clash means the traveler’s emotions are stirred by things seen away from home. Meeting a binding Combination means worldly affairs detain them just as they are about to leave.
Self controlling the Useful Spirit with both moving means turning toward another place. The Useful Spirit in same-phase harmony with Self, both in Void, means difficulty returning to the old home.
For a long journey, injury to the Useful line is most feared, especially entry into Tomb. For a short outing, a hidden principal image need not matter, and meeting Clash is particularly favorable.
If hidden at a place of Void, investigate the hexagram’s Six Combinations. If hidden beneath Officer, consult the Six Spirits upon the Flying line.
Concealed beneath Brothers, the traveler fails to return because of disputes. Held by Descendants, they forget to return through pleasure and wine.
Parents means obstruction through documents. Wealth means involvement in buying and selling.
The Useful Spirit hidden beneath Response’s Wealth means living as a son-in-law in another household. The principal image entering Wealth’s Storehouse means remaining in a wealthy house.
Ghost at the fifth line means the road is blocked. No Wealth in the hexagram means travel money is lacking.
Tomb occupying the line or moving means lying ill and groaning. Self combining or Clashing means someone must be sent to find the traveler.
Combination meeting Dark Warrior means infatuation with wine and sex, without thoughts of home. A Wandering Soul hexagram means drifting abroad with no fixed whereabouts.
The day joining an active Avoided Spirit means do not expect arrival. Body upon the moving Useful Spirit means a certain return.
Parents moving within the hexagram means a letter will be sent. Wealth active on Self means no letter will come.
To judge whether return is near or far, examine the principal image’s flourishing strength or decline.
Within movement and stillness lie many images of good and ill. At the ends of the earth, how many people are detained by reputation and profit!
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