Meaning
Thunder moves below and heaven is above it: movement in accord with the sky, nothing forced. The name 无妄 means without falseness, without anything reckless or contrived, and the tradition hears in it innocence, spontaneity, what is simply so. The Judgment promises great progress to the one who is correct and turns sharply on the one who is not: such a person goes wrong and gains nothing by moving in any direction.
The Image is thunder rolling under the whole sky, giving each thing its own nature, and the early kings answering it by keeping their measures to the seasons and nourishing all that lives. In our own reading, 无妄 is about acting from one's nature rather than from a plan for advantage. Its line texts also admit something the tradition does not hide: trouble can come to those who did nothing to earn it, and is then best left to pass.
The lines
The first line is free of all pretence and its advance goes well. The second "reaps without having ploughed", in Legge's English, harvesting without having worked for the harvest, and gains by not calculating. The third is the hexagram's undeserved misfortune: an ox tied up, a passer-by leading it away, and the villagers blamed for it. The fourth keeps firm and is blameless. The fifth meets a trouble it did nothing to bring about and is told to leave it alone; the top line is sincere, and still goes wrong if it acts.
Its pair is 大畜, hexagram 26, the figure upside down; within it lies 漸, hexagram 53, and every line flipped gives 升, hexagram 46.
In the birth cast
The time cast arrives at 无妄 when the year, month and day leave 1 on eight, which puts 乾 heaven above, and the same total with the hour added leaves 4, which puts 震 thunder below. Which line moves depends on what the whole total leaves on six, and each line turns the figure into a different hexagram:
- Line 1 (初九) moving: becomes 12 否 Pǐ, Blockage
- Line 2 (六二) moving: becomes 10 履 Lǚ, Treading
- Line 3 (六三) moving: becomes 13 同人 Tóng Rén, Fellowship
- Line 4 (九四) moving: becomes 42 益 Yì, Increase
- Line 5 (九五) moving: becomes 21 噬嗑 Shì Kè, Closing the Jaws
- Line 6 (上九) moving: becomes 17 隨 Suí, Following
Lines 2 to 5 give the hexagram within, 53 漸 Jiàn, Step by Step. Everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour has the same cast, so the figure describes a moment, not a person.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Trigram virtues (Shuogua, chapter 7)
- 震 moving, startling below; 乾 strong, untiring above, in our English sourced
- Trigram family places (Shuogua)
- eldest son below, father above sourced
- Trigram body and animal images (Shuogua)
- feet and dragon below; head and horse above sourced
- Trigram phases (a classical correspondence: the Plum Blossom text's table)
- Wood below, Metal above. The Han assignment of 梅花易數, book 1, also used by Jing Fang; not stated as such in the Zhouyi sourced
- Inverse and opposite
- Upside down: 26 大畜 Dà Xù, Great Restraint; every line flipped: 46 升 Shēng, Ascent sourced
- Human Design gate
- Gate 25, from 358.25° to 3.875° of the tropical zodiac on Ra Uru Hu's wheel (1987): a modern placing, not the I Ching's sourced
- Our English title
- Without Pretence: EsoTerrier's own, from the sense of 无妄 our construction
How the schools read it
- The Zhouyi, in Legge's translation (1882)
- “Wû Wang indicates great progress and success, while there will be advantage in being firm and correct.”
- The Image (大象), one of the Wings, in our paraphrase
- Thunder rolling under the whole sky and every thing given its nature; the ancient kings kept their regulations to the seasons and nourished all things.
- The Plum Blossom method (Ming)
- A figure reached by numbers: 乾 above when the year, month and day leave 1 on eight, 震 below when the same total with the hour leaves 4.
- Human Design (Ra Uru Hu, 1987)
- Takes the number for its gate 25 and puts it on the zodiac; its own reading, which we do not quote.
- EsoTerrier
- Thunder rolling under heaven: acting from what is right, without scheme or pretence; what comes unasked is met as it is, and plans laid for gain go astray.
Claims about it
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Gate 25 of Human Design, at 358.25° to 3.875° of the zodiac, is where the I Ching itself places hexagram 25.
falseWhat the record shows: The wheel is Shao Yong's circle rotated by Ra Uru Hu in 1987 to 1989 so that hexagram 41 starts at 2° Aquarius. No Chinese source we found puts the hexagrams on degrees of the zodiac.
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Being born under 无妄 Wú Wàng fixes a person's character.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A modern reading with no source in the tradition. The Zhouyi has no birth hexagram; the cast reads a figure, not a person, and everyone born in the same lunar day and double hour shares it.
