Career

The reading of a Career attends to three things: the potential for promotion; position and relations with colleagues; and how one feels about the work.

Making a name that lasts

Making a name that lasts — sometimes one dreams of it in life. When young, everyone means to make a name for a thousand years; but as one grows, after many turns, the dream is nipped away. The ideal is to spend one's life doing what one loves; but that too is an ideal. In the strong-spirited days of youth there is only oneself with oneself, and anything will do — one can even go hungry so long as one is happy; but later on, one's child, one's wife, one's father, one's mother cannot go hungry. That is the core of it: sometimes one wants it so, likes it so, but cannot, and so one follows the way of the world. To avoid following the world at random, since the future is known only to the future, and people only hope to judge rightly — one may set out for A and arrive at B — to set out for A and arrive at A, a few things have to be clear.

Choosing the Target line by the career difficulty

Someone who asks about a Career surely has a direct difficulty about their career. The career difficulty has to be made clear, namely:

• Looking for work: in this hexagram the Target line is taken according to the work being looked for. If it is short-term work such as part-time work, or purely working with no promotion, such as selling, sales…, take Wealth as the Target line. For work in an ordinary business environment, Parents is the Target line. In the police or the army, Officer is the Target line. With this kind of hexagram both the Target line and the Self line must be Prosperous at once; if either of the two is Weak it reports that the matter asked about is already spoilt. If the question is about something distant, such as a civil service examination, then Resting–Confined at the Self line will still pass; but if it is a near matter and the Self line is Resting, the matter is spoilt. Resting can still be used for a distant matter; note this here. Another note on matters concerning Parents: if the asker asks whether work is coming and Parents does not appear within the hexagram, or Parents appears at the changed line, then the moving line that produced it is the person who will introduce other work, at the moment of the branch of the Parents line, and the characteristics of the person introducing it will be like the moving line that produced it. If the asker has Wealth sitting on the Self line, moving and changing into Parents, they are taken on for a trial period but not taken on officially; Wealth changing into Parents not at the Self line is the image of using money to buy the job, meaning one will spend money on asking a favour, and the characteristics of the person asked will match those of the Wealth line, while whether the money is little or much depends on whether Wealth is Prosperous or Weak
• Planning to change jobs, but what will the new job be like? In this situation we read both the Self line and the Target line. Why not the Officer line? Because it is from what the asker seeks that we know what has to be attended to in the reading. Someone who has trouble having children, and fears that because of the work it will be hard to have a child, asking whether changing jobs is good or bad, takes Offspring as the Target line to know whether changing jobs brings a child; if they are concerned with promotion, take Officer; and if concerned with income, take Wealth. We do not read several Target lines, as has been said many times. Note that everything depends on the asker's present aim; other people's matters are their own — don't try to use other people. Note besides that the Self line will stand for the asker's state of mind and health with regard to the new work. The Target line is the aim, the Self line is oneself; sometimes the matter succeeds and one is not necessarily happy. Of course, each person's aim gives them their own choice. Sometimes one's child needs milk, and there it is.
• How will promotion go in the present work? Read the Officer line: if the Officer line is Prosperous then the post one aims at will be one's own — but the Self line has to be attended to as well. If the Self line is Weak, or Resting or below, and in the Tomb, one will surely be harmed because of the matter asked about; if it is punished one will surely get caught up with the law. In this case one should attend to the moving line: is it punishing or controlling one, or is it the Hostile line? Because if it is on the Self line, someone surely means to harm one; and then, from the position and the characteristics, one knows who it is and when, and from that has a suitable way of behaving with the times.
• Can the present work be kept? Officer as the Target line, as above
• Wanting to move to another department at the same level? Parents as the Target line
• Will one get clear of a case? The Self line and Officer as the Target lines. The Self line stands for whether one will be harmed, and Officer for whether the post can be kept. If the Self line is Prosperous and Officer Weak, one loses the post but keeps oneself; if the Self line is Weak and Officer Prosperous, one knows one will lose oneself but cannot resign. Note this.

According to each matter asked about, the Target line is chosen differently for the reading.

Position and relations with colleagues

As to position and relations with colleagues, this is judged only in hexagrams other than Six Clashes and other than Six Harmonies. Why so? Because in reading position we attend to the position of the Self line and the relation of the remaining lines, line 6 excepted, to know the relations with the ranks of colleagues in the company and one's own position.

• Line 1 is the lowest employee
• Line 2 may be a team leader or a long-serving employee
• Line 3 is a deputy head, or a head in a large company
• Line 4 is a manager or the chairman's assistant
• Line 5 is the highest person

That is, 1 to 5 correspond to the positions from lowest to highest in the company, or with respect to the asker. If the asker is concerned only with matters in their own department, then 1 to 5 are the positions within the department. With a Six Clashes hexagram the Self line is nearly always at line 6, and that does not report that one is a chairman in disguise but only that the matter will not last long and that during the work there will be many obstacles (the property of Six Clashes). With Six Harmonies the Self line is nearly always at line 1, which does not report that one is the person of lowest rank but that one's personal ability suits the matter asked about. This is theoretical reasoning; applied in practice afterwards it proved sound and correct. All the other reasoning is likewise formed on theory first — that is the method of going deep in Six Lines.

After that, the positions of the remaining 4 lines against the Self line tell us how the colleagues regard one, and this divides into still and moving.

• Still reports an attitude but no direct action between one person and another. For example, the Self line at Fire with line 5 at Water: the boss is surely not happy with one
• Moving reports direct action at a moment. For example, again the Self line at Fire with line 5 at Water moving: surely at the timing of Water the boss will make difficulties for one

In practice, as with a window in Feng Shui — in a big house with a thousand doors, how does one know which door is the problem? Or in a big place with a thousand people, how does one know who is who? — the identifying characteristics rest on the two factors of the Five Elements and the Six Spirits, and by them we know who is who and can behave suitably.

Besides, in the case of movement, the changed line also reports the situations connected with that moving line. If line 5 changes into draining, we know the person above has business outside that distracts them; or if another line changes into Officer, and it is Officer generating Parents generating the Self line, they will surely help one to a promotion, or introduce a new career. According to one's sensitivity one knows where the deeper problem lies.

Asking separately about the boss, an employee or a colleague

If one asks in general, read as above; but if asking separately about each person in relation to oneself, note the following:

• Asking about the boss in relation to oneself, Parents is the Target line; attend to the Self–Target relation to know, and there is no need to read Officer
• Asking about an employee or a subordinate, Wealth is the Target line; the Strength of Wealth tells us their ability. But if the Self line controls Wealth, this is a person one cannot use — note this, however talented they may be — and with the Self line Weak besides, one knows they will turn against one
• For someone of the same rank, take the Response line

In these 3 cases, note that if the Target line is Void the person is deceiving one, and if the Self line is Void one lacks the ability to use people. If the Target line is in the Tomb there is a lack of urging; if the Self line is in the Tomb one lacks motivation oneself. Judge it from there.

Identifying characteristics

The identifying characteristics have two parts: the Five Elements and the Six Spirits. Match them together to know who is who. I wish you promotion.

See also

• Reading space (the position of the lines) — an example career hexagram
• Target line, Self line, Response line
• Reading people, Six Spirits
• Destiny reading