Zhuangzi Tests His Wife
Inauspicious
The poem
Original: 因名丧德如何事 / 切恐吉中变化凶 / 酒醉不知何处去 / 青松影里梦朦胧
The story
Zhuangzi feigned death to test his wife's constancy. She mourned, but within twenty days a handsome prince of Chu arrived, claiming he wished to keep the mourning for the sage, and she resolved to remarry. When he pretended to need a corpse's brains as medicine and she took an axe to the coffin, Zhuangzi rose out of it. She killed herself for shame.
What it means
The image is a cold-water fish out of water, and nothing should be moved. Losing your integrity for the sake of a reputation, what exactly is it for? What looks fortunate turns unlucky, and the man who is drunk does not know where he has gone. The warning is against being drawn by a name or a profit into abandoning your part, since the arrangement that looks so complete has a crack in it, and any movement breaks it. If you ask about ventures, do not begin.
By area of life
Wealth
Do not invest blindly for the sake of a return without weighing the risk; greed here produces a loss you will regret.
Love
Do not choose hastily out of loneliness, and do not think only of winning someone back. Look for real compatibility.
Work
Choose respectable work and run your business honestly. Nothing gained by deception, or by cutting legal corners, is going to hold.
Health
Do not take reckless treatments in the hope of a quick cure; the side effects can do more damage than the disease.
Travel
Do not go abroad out of vanity, or because others are going. Assess your own capacity and the real necessity.
Advice
Do not trade your character for a good name.