Hexagram 4 for work
Hexagram 4 Immaturity for work and career
In work Meng is the new hire, the apprentice, the team that has not done this before. The Great Image shows the superior person 'acting decisively to nourish virtue': a spring must be given a channel or it spreads into a bog. The judgment's rule about asking once and not three times is a rule about how to be taught — the person who keeps re-asking the same question has stopped listening, and the hexagram says the teacher is right to fall silent.
For a project or a role, decide first whether you are the second line or the fifth: the capable person responsible for the inexperienced, or the inexperienced person who must go and ask. The second line's method is tolerance; the first line's is firm rules at the outset, loosened later; the top line's is a hard intervention when folly has gone on too long, aimed at the problem rather than the person. The two dead ends are the third line, attaching to whoever looks strongest, and the fourth, staying isolated from anyone who could help.
The hexagram in brief
A spring at the foot of a mountain: youthful ignorance that can be taught. Success comes to the learner who asks sincerely — the teacher does not chase the student.
Ask once, sincerely, and act on the answer; nourish correctness with patience and clear boundaries.
The judgment
蒙：亨。匪我求童蒙，童蒙求我。初筮告，再三瀆，瀆則不告。利貞。Măng (indicates that in the case which it presupposes) there will be progress and success. I do not (go and) seek the youthful and inexperienced, but he comes and seeks me. When he shows (the sincerity that marks) the first recourse to divination, I instruct him. If he apply a second and third time, that is troublesome; and I do not instruct the troublesome. There will be advantage in being firm and correct.
Which line changed?
A changing line sharpens the answer. Each line of 蒙 Immaturity has its own page:
- 初六Six at the beginningdispelling ignorance · discipline · removing fetters
- 九二Nine in the second placeembracing the ignorant · taking a wife · the son runs the house
- 六三Six in the third placedo not take this woman · losing oneself · no benefit
- 六四Six in the fourth placetrapped in ignorance · isolated · far from substance
- 六五Six in the fifth placechildlike openness · good fortune · docile and humble
- 上九Nine at the topstriking ignorance · not as a robber · warding off robbers
The same hexagram for
Questions
- What does hexagram 4, Immaturity, mean for a career question?
- In work Meng is the new hire, the apprentice, the team that has not done this before. The Great Image shows the superior person 'acting decisively to nourish virtue': a spring must be given a channel or it spreads into a bog. The judgment's rule about asking once and not three times is a rule about how to be taught — the person who keeps re-asking the same question has stopped listening, and the hexagram says the teacher is right to fall silent.
- What does Hexagram 4, 蒙 Immaturity, mean?
- A spring at the foot of a mountain: youthful ignorance that can be taught. Success comes to the learner who asks sincerely — the teacher does not chase the student.
Chinese text: the received Zhouyi (Wuyingdian lineage). English: James Legge, The Yî King, Sacred Books of the East XVI, 1882 (public domain).