Yi to Sun: a doctor asks about his son's future in trade

Date not recorded · Itō, a physician and a friend of Takashima · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 27 Yí (Nourishment), line 2 moving, changing to Hexagram 41 Sǔn (Decrease).

Original text

友人醫師伊藤某。其子在橫濱營商業。伊藤某一日來訪。請占其子終身運限。筮得頤之損。爻辭曰。六二顚頤。拂經。於丘頤。征凶。斷曰。頤之六二。以陰居陰。才智倶弱。未足興立事業也。頤者養也。當居下以奉上。不當以上而養下。此爲養之常道也。今六二爻辭曰。顚頤拂經於丘。是顚倒拂亂而失其正也。足下占問令郞終身。而得此爻。知令郞雖從事商業。必不能獲利而養親。而反將耗損父產。故曰征凶。且其所與共事者。皆非善類。故象曰。六二征凶。行失類也。爲今之計。惟囑令郞停止商業。可免後患。伊藤某聞之。大爲歎息。謂易象所云。絲毫不爽。即命其子閉店。其子不從。竟至產業蕩盡。可惜可惜。

In plain words

Takashima's friend Itō, a physician, had a son in business in Yokohama. One day Itō came to ask him to divine the son's prospects over his whole life. The cast gave Yi with its second line moving, changing into Sun. The line reads: "Six in the second place: nourishment turned upside down, going against the norm; seeking nourishment from the hill, setting out brings misfortune."

Takashima's judgment: the second line of Yi is yin in a yin place, weak in both wit and ability, not yet up to building a business. Yi means nourishing; the young should serve and support those above them, not have those above support them. That is the normal way of nourishing. The line's "upside down, against the norm, from the hill" means turned on its head and off the right course.

Asking about your son's life and drawing this line shows that although he is in trade, he will not earn enough to support his parents, but will instead eat into his father's money; hence "setting out brings misfortune". And the people he works with are not decent sorts, which is why the commentary says, "setting out brings misfortune, because he goes with the wrong company". The only course now is to tell your son to give up the business, and so avoid worse later.

Itō sighed deeply, said the reading was exactly right, and told his son at once to close the shop. The son would not listen, and in the end lost everything. What a pity.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the second line of Yi is read, with the Small Image commentary's "goes with the wrong company".
The hexagram is read as nourishment: the normal way is for the young to support the old; "turned upside down" is the reverse, a father supporting his son.
The line's place is yin in a yin place: soft and weak, read as lacking the ability to build a business.
The commentary's "wrong company" becomes bad associates, adding one more reason to the judgment.

About the outcome

That the son "lost everything" is Takashima's own record. A father who asks an outsider about his son's future has usually already begun to doubt the son's business, and Takashima's judgment matched that worry. This site does not treat it as evidence; what is worth reading is how "nourishment turned upside down" becomes a family in which support flows the wrong way.

Applying it to your situation

"Nourishment turned upside down" asks what you live on and whom you are supporting. In your present arrangements, does support flow the right way, or has it quietly turned around?

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