Cui to Kun: needing someone to open the door

Date not recorded · A friend of Takashima · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 45 Cuì (Gathering Together), line 2 moving, changing to Hexagram 47 Kùn (Exhaustion).

Original text

友人某來。請占氣運。筮得萃之困。爻辭曰。六二引吉。无咎。孚乃利用禴。斷曰。此卦地上有澤。可以蓄水。即可聚財。故卦曰萃。今占得二爻。爻辭曰引吉。知足下所謀之事。必待有人引而伸之。乃可獲吉。二與五應。能爲足下指引者。必屬於五。惜其中有三四兩爻間隔。宜備禮祈禱。以乞神佑。使三四不能阻碍。則所謀得遂。自然吉而無咎也。

In plain words

A friend of Takashima came to ask about his fortunes. The cast gave Cui with its second line moving, changing into Kun (Oppression). The line reads: "Six in the second place: being drawn forward brings good fortune, no fault; with sincerity, even a modest offering is favourable."

Takashima's judgment: this hexagram is a lake upon the earth, which can store water, and so can gather wealth; hence the name Gathering. You drew the second line, "being drawn forward brings good fortune", so whatever you are planning will only succeed when someone draws you forward and helps it along.

The second line answers the fifth, so the person who can guide you must be the one the fifth line stands for. Unfortunately the third and fourth lines lie in between. Prepare a proper offering and pray sincerely for the spirits' help, so that the third and fourth cannot get in the way; then your plans will go through, and all will be well without fault.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the second line of Cui is read.
The image is a lake above the earth: a lake stores water, widened to gathering wealth, which is where "Gathering" comes from.
The line's relations are correspondence and obstruction: the second answers the fifth, the person who can raise him up, but the third and fourth lie between, possible obstacles. Finding a patron through the corresponding line and obstacles through the lines in between is one of Takashima's habits.
"With sincerity, even a modest offering" refers to a simple spring sacrifice, read as making offerings and praying, reaching the spirits through sincerity.

About the outcome

The text does not say what became of the friend. The advice to make offerings and pray reflects the religious habits of Takashima's time; this site does not present it as a claim that such things work.

Applying it to your situation

"Being drawn forward brings good fortune": some things cannot be done alone; they need someone to open the door. For what you are working on, who could draw you forward, and what stands between you and them?

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