Guan Di lot 39 of 100
Settle, and mind the start
Lowest (下下, 丁壬). Grades differ between editions, and many Taiwanese temples print none. Shown as Wikisource gives it. Wikisource prints no stem pair for this lot, so 丁壬 is from manekineko.com.tw.
北山門下好安居
若問終時慎厥初
堪笑包藏許多事
鱗鴻雖便莫修書
Under the northern hills, there is a good place to live.
If you ask how things will end, be careful of how they begin.
It is laughable to hold in so many matters.
Though a letter could be sent, do not write it.
What this lot says
This is a lot about retreat and restraint. The verse recommends a quiet home, care at the start of anything, and not sending a message you may regret.
If you were about to write an angry or revealing letter, it says wait.
A lot is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
The story behind it
Tao Yuanming admires chrysanthemums (陶淵明賞菊)
According to the account on Wikisource, Tao Yuanming of the Jin dynasty resigned his post rather than bow to a visiting inspector for a small salary, wrote the essay "Returning Home", and loved chrysanthemums.
Source: Wikisource, 關聖帝君靈籤/39, the 故事及記載 section
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author. We read it from two named web transcriptions, Chinese Wikisource (the base text) and manekineko.com.tw. Neither is a scan of a printing, the edition behind them is mixed, and we could not establish whether the two are independent of each other.
Wikisource (關聖帝君靈籤) (the text shown above)
北山門下好安居 / 若問終時慎厥初 / 堪笑包藏許多事 / 鱗鴻雖便莫修書
Retrieved 2026-11-09. Transcription licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
manekineko.com.tw (富貴轉運站)
北山門下好安居 / 若問終時慎厥初 / 堪笑包藏許多事 / 鱗鴻雖便莫修書
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 1: a note in Wikisource's transcription gives 外 for 下, apparently a variant reading.
- Line 4: Wikisource's commentary says the last line is also given with 好修書, a reading it considers poor.
English translation, meaning and story summaries are by Cast & Chart.