Hexagram 25 for work
Hexagram 25 Without Falsehood for work and career
At work Wu Wang is the hexagram of acting in accordance with the season rather than with ambition. The Great Image says the ancient kings 'nourished all things in accordance with the time' — the model is a leader who responds to what the situation genuinely needs, not one who forces outcomes. The second line gives the working rule: do the ploughing without staring at the harvest. The hexagram promises great success to that attitude and nothing at all to scheming, and it includes two lines, the third and the fifth, where a sound project is hit by a setback it did not cause.
For a job, a project or a negotiation, this means keeping your conduct straight and your expectations loose. Undertake what is plainly yours to do, decline what would require bending the facts, and when an unfair blow lands, do not over-correct. A changing line low in the hexagram favours starting; one in the upper trigram counsels holding your position, and at the top it says the opportunity has already closed.
The hexagram in brief
Thunder under heaven: things moving by their innate nature. Great success for what is correct and unplanned; scheming brings misfortune, and some misfortune simply arrives undeserved.
Act from sincerity without calculation; when the unexpected strikes, don't medicate what needs no medicine.
The judgment
无妄：元亨，利貞。其匪正有眚，不利有攸往。Wû Wang indicates great progress and success, while there will be advantage in being firm and correct. If (its subject and his action) be not correct, he will fall into errors, and it will not be advantageous for him to move in any direction.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 无妄 Without Falsehood has its own page:
- 初九Nine at the beginningsincere start · go forward · the will fulfilled
- 六二Six in the second placeno harvest in mind · unforced work · ready for anything
- 六三Six in the third placeundeserved loss · the tethered ox · wrong place
- 九四Nine in the fourth placehold firm · no partner · what is yours
- 九五Nine in the fifth placeunprovoked trouble · do not meddle · it passes
- 上九Nine at the toptime exhausted · do not act · innocence overstretched
The same hexagram for
Questions
- What does hexagram 25, Without Falsehood, mean for a career question?
- At work Wu Wang is the hexagram of acting in accordance with the season rather than with ambition. The Great Image says the ancient kings 'nourished all things in accordance with the time' — the model is a leader who responds to what the situation genuinely needs, not one who forces outcomes. The second line gives the working rule: do the ploughing without staring at the harvest. The hexagram promises great success to that attitude and nothing at all to scheming, and it includes two lines, the third and the fifth, where a sound project is hit by a setback it did not cause.
- What does Hexagram 25, 无妄 Without Falsehood, mean?
- Thunder under heaven: things moving by their innate nature. Great success for what is correct and unplanned; scheming brings misfortune, and some misfortune simply arrives undeserved.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).