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I Ching · Hexagram 25 Innocence

Hexagram 25 for decisions: Innocence

無妄 Wú Wàng · A decision

Choose the option you would choose if no one were watching and nothing could be gained. If a decision requires cunning to work, the reading says it will not.

Thunder below, heaven above: movement in accord with heaven. Innocence describes action that springs from an honest nature rather than from scheming, and the tradition ties it to the unexpected: what comes to the person who acts without ulterior motive cannot be planned and is not always pleasant. The judgement promises great success with persistence, and warns that anyone not as they should be will meet misfortune. The reading asks for sincerity without agenda. It also says, in the lines, that undeserved misfortune can happen to the innocent, and that the right response is not to lose one's innocence over it.

Advice
Act from honest motives without calculation, and take what comes without losing your integrity.
Warning
The moment innocence becomes a strategy, it stops working and misfortune follows.

The changing lines, read for decisions

If your cast of Hexagram 25 had changing lines, these are what each one adds to a decision question, and where each leads.

  1. Line 1 · changes into 12 Standstill

    Innocent action brings good fortune. Follow your honest first impulse.

  2. Line 2 · changes into 10 Treading

    Not counting on the harvest while ploughing, nor on the third year's field while clearing. It furthers to undertake something. Do the work well and let the reward look after itself.

  3. Line 3 · changes into 13 Fellowship

    Undeserved misfortune. The cow tethered by a wanderer is the passer-by's gain and the villager's loss. Accept the undeserved loss without becoming someone who deserves one.

  4. Line 4 · changes into 42 Increase

    One who can be persistent remains without blame. Hold your ground and your principles; that is enough here.

  5. Line 5 · changes into 21 Biting Through

    Illness not of one's own making. Use no medicine; it will pass by itself. Do not intervene in a trouble that will pass by itself.

  6. Line 6 · changes into 17 Following

    Innocent action brings misfortune. Nothing furthers. The time is wrong; even a good act misfires now. Wait.

Hexagram 25 in fullLove & relationshipsCareerMoney

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