Tong Ren to Ge: a boardroom fight, and whether he will lose his post

Date not recorded · An officer of a company, an acquaintance of Takashima · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 13 Tóng Rén (Fellowship), line 6 (top) moving, changing to Hexagram 49 Gé (Revolution).

Original text

有相識會社役員某氏。來告曰。近來我會社頭取。與大株主之間。頗生紛議。株主欲開總會。改選社員。又有一派贊成當時之社員者。競爭頗甚。余不自知免職與否。請占前途之運氣。筮得同人之革。爻辭曰。上九同人于郊。无悔。斷曰。同人者。與人相同也。勿論社員株主。皆思其社之利益。非各謀私利者。唯其所爲有左右之差。而遂生紛議也。蓋此紛議之來。由五爻之頭取。與二爻之支配人。其間過相親密。致啓他人之疑。然其疑可不久而解也。如足下不偏不黨。無所關係。亦無免職之憂。故曰于郊。无悔。郊者。田舍之謂。而離市街煩雜之地也。後果如此占。

In plain words

An officer of a company whom Takashima knew came and said: lately our president and the major shareholders have been in a serious dispute. The shareholders want to call a general meeting and elect new officers, while another faction backs the current ones, and the fight is fierce. I do not know whether I will lose my post; please divine my prospects. The cast gave Tong Ren with its top line moving, changing into Ge. The line reads: "Nine at the top: fellowship in the outskirts; no regret."

Takashima's judgment: Tong Ren means being at one with others. Officers and shareholders alike are thinking of the company's good, not of private gain; they differ only in how to go about it, and that is what started the dispute. It came about because the president, the fifth line, and the manager, the second line, were too close, which made others suspicious; but the suspicion will soon clear.

If you take no side and keep out of it, you need not fear losing your post; hence "in the outskirts; no regret". The outskirts are the countryside, away from the noise of the town.

It turned out as the reading said.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the top line of Tong Ren is read.
The hexagram is read as fellowship: the dispute is first framed as a quarrel over method toward a shared goal, not over private gain.
Lines stand for people: the fifth line is the president, the second the manager, and their correspondence is read as a closeness that made others suspicious. This uses line relations to analyse an organisation.
The image is "the outskirts": the top line sits at the far edge of the figure, like someone out in the countryside, which becomes taking no side and staying out of it.

About the outcome

"It turned out as the reading said" is Takashima's own record, and it does not say how the dispute ended. Advising someone to stay out of a factional fight is common sense for reducing risk; the advice would likely have been sound whatever the lines said. This site does not treat it as evidence.

Applying it to your situation

"Fellowship in the outskirts" is not indifference; it means not rushing to get drawn in when others are fighting. In the dispute around you, where do you really need to take a stand, and where could you step back and watch?

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.

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