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I Ching · Hexagram 4 Youthful Folly

Hexagram 4 for career: Youthful Folly

蒙 Méng · Career

A learning position. Find the person who knows and ask properly; do not ask everyone, and do not keep asking the same thing. The reading rewards the humble learner and the teacher who sets clear limits.

A spring at the foot of a mountain: water that does not yet know where it is going. Youthful Folly is about not knowing, and about the proper relationship between the one who does not know and the one who does. The tradition's rule is famous: the student seeks the teacher, not the other way round, and a question asked over and over out of doubt is not answered. The reading is not an insult. It says the situation is one of inexperience, that guidance is available, and that the way to receive it is with sincerity and without pestering.

Advice
Admit what you do not know, seek one good teacher, and take the answer you are given.
Warning
Asking the same question repeatedly, hoping for a different answer, shuts the source of guidance.

The changing lines, read for career

If your cast of Hexagram 4 had changing lines, these are what each one adds to a career question, and where each leads.

  1. Line 1 · changes into 41 Decrease

    Discipline makes the fool learn. Fetters help; continuing that way brings shame. Accept firm structure now, and expect it to loosen as you learn.

  2. Line 2 · changes into 23 Splitting Apart

    Bearing with fools kindly is fortunate. Knowing how to take a wife is fortunate. The son can run the household. Be patient with the inexperienced; it is the route to being trusted.

  3. Line 3 · changes into 18 Work on What Has Been Spoiled

    Do not take the girl who throws herself at a man of bronze. Nothing furthers. Do not attach yourself to anything just because it looks powerful.

  4. Line 4 · changes into 64 Before Completion

    Entangled folly brings humiliation. Stop insulating yourself from facts; the humiliation is the cure.

  5. Line 5 · changes into 59 Dispersion

    Childlike folly brings good fortune. Ask openly, follow the answer, and let yourself be a beginner.

  6. Line 6 · changes into 7 The Army

    Punishing folly. It does not further to commit transgressions; it furthers to prevent them. If you must be severe, be severe to prevent damage, not to punish it afterwards.

Hexagram 4 in fullLove & relationshipsMoneyA decision

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