Song to Huan: a head clerk thinks of confronting his employer

Date not recorded · A friend of Takashima, the head clerk of a merchant house · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 6 Sòng (Conflict), line 4 moving, changing to Hexagram 59 Huàn (Dispersion).

Original text

友人某。商店甲幹也。一日來告曰。余自主人開店之始。拮据勉勵。以興主人之家產。近來主人因世運變遷。改其面目。別興新事業。又雇聘學士等。給之以過分之金。某則依然甲幹而已。其給料亦不及學士等。某屈居人下。不堪遺憾。意欲向主人訴此情實。冀達平素之志願。若不見許。余請以此數年來之勤勞。求相當之恩給。欲獨立而營商業。請筮一卦。以卜成否。筮得訟之渙。爻辭曰。九四。不克訟。復即命。安貞。吉。斷曰。此卦上卦强健。爲主人。下卦困難。爲足下。足下雖欲陳述苦情。恐未必許可。宜依舊從事。百般忍耐。爻辭所謂不克訟者。言足下即向主人陳說。必不伸理。所謂復命者。勸足下返而自審。安命守常。所謂渝安貞者。勸足下變其不安貞而爲安貞。則得吉也。細繹爻辭。是明明敎足下無復多言。安常俟命。他日主人。自有優待。必獲吉也。

In plain words

A friend of Takashima was the head clerk of a merchant house. One day he said: I have toiled for my employer since the day he opened the shop and helped build up his fortune. Lately, with the changing times, he has remade the business, started new ventures and hired university graduates at generous salaries, while I am still only the head clerk and am paid less than they are. Placed beneath them, I cannot bear it.

I want to put the facts to my employer and ask for what I have long hoped for; if he refuses, I will ask for a fair sum for my years of work and go into business on my own. Please cast to see whether it will succeed. The cast gave Song with its fourth line moving, changing into Huan. The line reads: "Nine in the fourth place: unable to win the dispute; he turns back and accepts his lot; changing to rest in what is right is good."

Takashima's judgment: the upper trigram is strong, standing for the employer; the lower trigram is difficulty, standing for you. You may want to state your grievance, but it will probably not be granted. Better to carry on as before and be very patient. "Unable to win the dispute" means that even if you put your case to him, you will not win the argument; "turns back and accepts his lot" urges you to look at yourself again, accept your place and keep to the ordinary way; "changing to rest in what is right" urges you to turn your unsettled mind into a settled one, and then there will be good fortune.

Read closely, the line plainly tells you to say no more, keep to the ordinary way and wait; in time your employer will treat you well of his own accord, and it will turn out well.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the fourth line of Song is read.
The two trigrams stand for the two parties: strong Qian above is the employer, perilous Kan below is the clerk. Assigning the trigrams to the two sides of the question is a common way of reading.
The line is taken phrase by phrase: "unable to win", "turns back and accepts his lot" and "changing to rest in what is right" become, in turn, the complaint will fail, look at yourself, and settle your mind.
The reading stays almost entirely with the words of the line and makes no use of inner trigrams or the changed hexagram.

About the outcome

The text ends here. It does not say what the clerk did or whether his employer ever treated him better; "in time your employer will treat you well" is only Takashima's judgment.

Applying it to your situation

The advice here is conservative, and not all of it should be followed today: when you are treated unfairly, saying so and standing up for yourself is not wrong. What can be borrowed from this line is "turning back": first look at what you really want, recognition, pay or independence. Once that is clear, decide whether to speak and how.

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