This lesson teaches one task: select and record a usable Plum Blossom signal before calculating.

A normal I Ching consultation begins with a deliberate casting operation. Wen Wang Gua turns a cast into a technical line table. Plum Blossom starts somewhere else: a number, time, image, sound, direction, count, or interruption becomes the seed of the hexagram.

The selected cue determines the input. It does not prove that the event carried a message or that a later interpretation will be correct.

Prerequisite: read the course pillar and keep a notebook ready. Your output is a signal record containing the question, cue, time, reason for selecting it, and conversion rule—or a written decision to leave the cue alone.

The Clean Definition

The received method and modern teaching streams convert selected cues into the following reading layers:

LayerQuestion
Upper trigramWhich trigram occupies the upper or outer position?
Lower trigramWhich trigram occupies the lower or inner position?
Moving lineWhere does the moment turn?
Changed hexagramWhat direction does the image open into?
Ti/Yong relationWhich trigram contains the moving line (Yong), which remains unchanged (Ti), and how do their phases relate?
Text and imageHow does the I Ching language sharpen the reading?

The method is flexible, but the input rule must be fixed before calculation. Otherwise a reader can keep selecting numbers until a convenient result appears.

Claim source: the received Meihua Yishu, vol. 1, includes calendar, object-number, sound, and event examples. Sun's 2006 presentation, p. 46, lists people or animals, colors, date and time, sounds, and direction; Wen, ch. 7, supplies another named modern presentation. UAYA's record-before-calculation rule is a teaching convention, not a claim that these sources prove efficacy.

What Counts as a Signal

Plum Blossom works best when the input has a clear reason to be used:

  • A question forms at a particular time.
  • A sudden event interrupts the moment.
  • A sound, count, direction, color, object, or movement draws attention.
  • A number appears in a way that feels tied to the question.
  • A tactile action produces a count, such as rice grains, beads, or page numbers.

The signal should be specific enough to record. If you cannot write down what happened, when it happened, and why you used it, the method is already becoming too vague.

What It Does Not Do

Plum Blossom does not replace every other method.

Trap Using it as a shortcut WWG

Plum Blossom can use time and Five Phases, but it does not produce a full six-line target chart.

Trap Forcing a cue after the fact

If the number was selected only because it makes the answer convenient, the reading has lost its anchor.

Trap Calling every impression a sign

Record the cue before calculation, then retain misses and ambiguity during later review.

The Reading Pipeline

Use the same sequence every time:

  1. Name the question or situation. Keep it short.
  2. Record the cue. Time, count, direction, sound, number, object, or event.
  3. Choose the conversion rule before calculating. Do not change the rule after seeing the result.
  4. Derive the upper trigram, lower trigram, and moving line.
  5. Identify the primary and changed hexagrams.
  6. Assign Ti and Yong. In this course’s single-moving-line convention, the trigram containing the moving line is Yong; the other trigram is Ti.
  7. Read the Five Phase relation. Support, drain, control, being controlled, or same phase.
  8. Read the I Ching text and image. Let the received hexagram language constrain the interpretation.
  9. Write a bounded sentence and confidence label. Inconclusive is allowed.

The Course Case

Example type: invented teaching case. No real client or outcome is being reported.

This course will reuse a simple case.

A learner asks whether a workshop proposal has life in it. As the question is asked, three messages arrive in a chat, and the wall clock reads 14:27.

We will use the cue honestly:

  • Three messages as an event count.
  • 14:27 as a visible time number.
  • A prechosen rule for converting those numbers.
  • The resulting hexagram as a moment-image, not as a guaranteed outcome.

The goal is not to prove a prediction. The goal is to practise a declared procedure.

This case also shows the difference between signal families. The three messages are a new event. The clock number is a visible cue in the same moment. A formal horary exercise would require a different calendar rule.

A Valid Failure: Leave the Cue Alone

Suppose the student noticed the clock only after calculating from the three messages, then added 14:27 because the first result seemed unhelpful. The added cue fails this course’s selection rule. Record:

  • cue selected after seeing a result;
  • conversion rule changed midstream;
  • disposition: invalid exercise—do not interpret.

Do not repair the cast or start again immediately. Keeping the failed record is part of the casebook.

Source Honesty

The received tradition links Plum Blossom to Shao Yong. Shao Yong’s documented work provides relevant intellectual context, but the received Meihua Yishu text should be described as traditionally attributed to Shao Yong, not securely authored by him.

Claim source: Fu, ch. 3.3, pp. 27–29, summarizes both the received attribution and evidence against secure authorship. Bol, pp. 287–299, addresses Shao Yong's documented method of observing things.

Next, learn the difference between fixed data and spontaneous events. Continue to Prenatal and Postnatal Signals.