Wu Wang to Tong Ren: a partner suddenly cancels

Date not recorded · A friend of Takashima · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 25 Wú Wàng (Innocence), line 3 moving, changing to Hexagram 13 Tóng Rén (Fellowship).

Original text

一日友人某突然來訪曰。僕近與朋友某共計一商業。書來約今日會晤。今忽以家事混雜謝絕。其中或有變計乎。請勞一筮。筮得无妄之同人。爻辭曰。六三无妄之災。或繫之牛。行人之得。邑人之災。斷曰。爻辭謂或繫之牛。行人之得。邑人之災。按離爲牛。亦爲女。觀此知其家必有遠來親友。以婦女寄託也。此女象取離卦。必有離絕之事。且離爲孕。或女已懷孕矣。行人之得。是與行人而皆奔也。在某住所。非畜牛之地。故知其必爲女也。繫者即寄託之謂也。邑人者即君之友也。然此友受此女之寄。所謂邑人之災。恐難免矣。某所稱家事混雜。殆即此歟。友人驚余言之奇異。而歸。後數日。來謝曰。過日占辭。不誤一語。悉合事實。

In plain words

One day a friend of Takashima called unexpectedly and said: I have lately been planning a business with a friend, and he wrote to arrange a meeting today; now he has suddenly cancelled, saying there is turmoil at home. Could he be changing his mind? Please cast for me. The cast gave Wu Wang with its third line moving, changing into Tong Ren. The line reads: "Six in the third place: undeserved misfortune. Someone tethers an ox; the traveller's gain is the townsman's loss."

Takashima's judgment: the line says "someone tethers an ox; the traveller's gain is the townsman's loss". Li stands for the ox, and also for a woman. From this, a relative or friend from far away must have left a young woman in his care. Since her image comes from Li, which also means parting, there must be a separation; and since Li also stands for pregnancy, she may already be with child.

"The traveller's gain" means she has run off with the traveller. Your friend's home is no place for keeping cattle, so the "ox" must be the woman. "Tethering" means being entrusted; "the townsman" is your friend. Having taken her into his care, he can hardly escape "the townsman's loss". The turmoil at home he mentioned is probably this.

The friend, astonished at so strange a reading, went home. A few days later he came to thank Takashima: the reading had not been wrong in a single word; everything matched the facts.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the third line of Wu Wang is read.
The images come from the trigram: when the third line changes, the lower trigram becomes Li. Takashima draws on several of its associations: the cow (Li's own judgment speaks of "raising a cow"), the middle daughter, "parting" (the character's other sense), and, from the Shuo Gua's "Li is the big belly", pregnancy.
Common sense is used to rule things out: the friend's house is no place for cattle, so the "ox" is read as a woman; "tethering" as being entrusted; "the traveller's gain" as leaving with a traveller.
This is Takashima at his boldest with images, spinning a whole detailed story out of one line.

About the outcome

"Not wrong in a single word" is the friend's thanks as recorded by Takashima, and the book never says what "the facts" actually were. A story this detailed drawn from one line, and then said to have come true in every point, is exactly where a reader of divination books most needs to keep some distance. This site does not treat it as evidence; what is worth reading is how far a single image can be stretched.

Applying it to your situation

"Undeserved misfortune" is trouble one did not bring on oneself. When someone suddenly cancels, it is easy to assume the worst or invent a whole story. Beyond the facts you actually have, how much of the story have you filled in for 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