Kun to Yu: Godai Tomoatsu asks about the year's business

January 1879 (Meiji 12) · Godai Tomoatsu, a leading Osaka businessman of the Meiji era · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 2 Kūn (The Receptive), line 4 moving, changing to Hexagram 16 Yù (Enthusiasm).

Original text

明治十二年一月。邂逅大阪五代友厚氏。氏請占本年商務。筮得坤之豫。爻辭曰。六四括囊无咎无譽。斷曰。坤主利之卦。有羣聚爭利之象。四爻以陰居陰。不可進而爲事也。故本年宜退守。不宜擴張商業。爻辭曰括囊者。括財囊之口。不可出財貨也。故括囊則無損益。開囊便多失。囑愼勿着手商事。五代氏有感此占。然商業之勢。雖知不利。只可小做。不能不做。偶有營業。果致虧敗。

In plain words

In January 1879 Takashima met Godai Tomoatsu in Osaka. Godai asked him to divine the year's business, and the cast gave Kun with its fourth line moving, changing into Yu. The line reads: "Six in the fourth place: a tied-up sack; no fault, no praise."

Takashima's judgment: Kun is a hexagram about gain, with the image of a crowd gathering to compete for profit; the fourth line is yin in a yin place and is not fit to push ahead. So this year called for holding back rather than expanding the business. "A tied-up sack" means tying the mouth of the purse so no money goes out: tied, there is neither gain nor loss; opened, losses come easily. He urged Godai not to start any new venture.

Godai was struck by the reading, but the pull of business meant that, even knowing the risk, he could only do less, not nothing. He happened to take on one deal, and it ended in a loss.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the text of that line in the original hexagram is read, in keeping with Zhu Xi's rules for moving lines.
The hexagram is read as being about gain: Takashima follows Zhu Xi in punctuating the judgment of Kun so that it speaks of "profit", and so treats Kun as a hexagram of wealth.
The line's position is yin in a yin place: the fourth line is yielding and correct, but not central and right beside the ruler, so it should hold rather than advance.
The image is the tied-up sack, taken literally as a purse: no new outlay, no expansion. This is a typical way of making a line's image concrete for the matter asked about.

About the outcome

The loss is Takashima's own record. Books of divination tend to record the cases that came true and leave out those that did not, so this site does not treat it as evidence that divination works. What is worth reading here is how Takashima reasoned, step by step, from the hexagram, the line's position and its image to "hold back this year".

Applying it to your situation

If you are at a point where you know the odds are poor but feel you cannot stand still, this line suggests that tying the sack does not mean doing nothing; it means not adding more at the wrong time. Which outlay right now could wait a little longer?

Original: Takashima Kaemon, Takashima Ekidan (expanded edition), recorded by Yanagida Ikusaku, Chinese text by Wang Zhiben, 1901. Translation, notes and reflection by this site.

These are historical records kept by the diviner himself. The outcomes are his own account; this site uses them to study how the lines were read, not as evidence that divination predicts events.

Cast a hexagram · All of Takashima's cases · The 64 hexagrams