Zengshan Buyi Volume 3: Life Readings and Personal Fortune

All books on divining life destiny claim that wife, wealth, children, and salary can be encompassed in a single hexagram, with all six lines judged simultaneously to determine longevity, early death, poverty, and success. They do not realize that fathers, sons, wealth, officials, and siblings each have their own conflicts and injuries. If one attempts to judge all from a single hexagram -- for example, when the parent line is prosperous and flourishing but seems to have diminished effect, they also say 'prosperous parents injure children.' Does this mean everyone who has parents will lack descendants? They also say 'when the sibling line appears, wealth cannot be obtained,' and that it 'represents the spirit that overcomes the wife.' They say 'the sibling line means brothers flourishing together like the jing tree.' But if one encounters a prosperous sibling line holding the world position, does it mean the wife is overcome? Or wealth is consumed? Or siblings are harmed? The Awakened One [Li Wenhui] says: I have now found the correct method -- it is the method of divining separately. Divining for parents, divining for siblings -- each requires a separate hexagram. For lifelong wealth and fortune, cast a separate hexagram. For lifelong career prospects, cast separately. For lifelong marital harmony, cast separately. For lifelong descendants and fertility, all should be divined separately.

When the fortune and wealth lines are prosperous, one belongs to a household of bells and cauldrons [extreme luxury]. When the world line is prosperous and unharmed, one is both wealthy and long-lived. The Awakened One says: When divining for wealth, the wealth line should be prosperous. When divining for longevity, one relies solely on the world line. I have never heard that when fortune and wealth are not prosperous but the world line alone is prosperous, one can be promised both wealth and longevity. Those who insist on this would have us believe that all long-lived people are wealthy and noble. Whenever divining for lifelong wealth and fortune: if the world line, wealth line, and offspring line are all three unimpaired, one is certainly from a solidly prosperous household with enduring blessings. If the wealth and world lines are prosperous but the fortune spirit is not, one will be rich first and poor later -- because the offspring line is the source of wealth. A stream without a source will eventually dry up; this is called 'wealth prosperous but fortune empty -- glory will not last.' If the world and fortune lines are prosperous but wealth is not, one enjoys good fortune without wealth -- such a person has ready-made enterprises and only knows how to enjoy them, not how to generate more. If the wealth and fortune lines are prosperous but the world line is not, one is a poor person in a rich house.

'When the world line occupies a void position, one accomplishes nothing in one's entire life.' The old commentary greatly dreads world-void, saying all endeavors in life will fail. I consider this view approximately correct, but it fails to distinguish between prosperous-and-void versus truly empty. When the world line is prosperous yet void, this is called 'carrying prosperity -- not truly void.' Movement negates void. When the day-officer clashes it, the clash empties the void -- in the year when the void becomes real, fortune suddenly manifests. How can one say nothing is accomplished? Case: In the Xu month, Xin-Hai day, divining for lifelong wealth and fortune. Obtained: Bi transforming to Guan hexagram. Judgment: Although the world line is void, the month establishment combines with it, the Hai day generates it, and the Zi water wealth line moves to generate the world. In the Mao year, one will certainly establish a household. He divined in the Chou year; indeed by the Mao year, he established a household business. At that time it was the beginning of the dynasty's consolidation, Yunnan and Guizhou had just been pacified, and this man brought out several loads of aconite, Coptis root, and mulberry timber from Sichuan, suddenly accumulating several thousand in gold. From then on he established his business and prospered year after year. Can this be called 'accomplishing nothing in one's entire life'? 'When one enters the tomb direction, tears accompany one's pursues until old age.' When the world line has a tomb, but only one tomb, and is resting without vital energy -- such a person is as if drunk or dreaming, neither clever nor alert, hesitant and uncertain in all actions. The Awakened One says: If the world line is supported by the day and month, or generated by them, or moves and transforms auspiciously, and does not encounter years that clash open the tomb -- then indeed one is confused and muddled. But when the tomb storehouse is clashed open, it is like seedlings meeting rain. The proverb says: 'When fortune arrives, the mind becomes clear.' If the hexagram also has wealth and fortune lines generating support, or these lines are prosperous, then sudden wealth manifests. Therefore one who enters the tomb prospers in the year of the clash -- how can one say tears until old age?