Guan Di lot 55 of 100
Plough hard, do not waste time
Middling (中平, 己戊). Grades differ between editions, and many Taiwanese temples print none. Shown as Wikisource gives it. Wikisource prints no stem pair for this lot, so 己戊 is from manekineko.com.tw.
勤耕力作莫蹉跎
衣食隨時安分過
縱使經商收倍利
不如逐歲廩禾多
Plough diligently and work hard, and do not waste time.
Take food and clothing as the seasons give them and live within your lot.
Even if trade brings a doubled profit,
it is not as good as a bigger store of grain each year.
What this lot says
This is a lot in favour of steady work over speculation. The verse says that a modest, regular return is better than a risky bigger one.
It suits a question about money. It is not advice on any particular choice, but it leans toward patience and caution. For a real financial decision, speak to a qualified adviser.
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
Bao Zheng urges farming (包龍圖勸農)
According to the account on Wikisource, Bao Zheng of the Song dynasty, an official known for not bending the law, valued grain and farming and wanted the people to know how to farm.
Source: Wikisource, 關聖帝君靈籤/55, 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)
勤耕力作莫蹉跎 / 衣食隨時安分過 / 縱使經商收倍利 / 不如逐歲廩禾多
Retrieved 2026-11-09. Transcription licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
manekineko.com.tw (富貴轉運站)
勤耕力作莫蹉跎 / 衣食隨時安分過 / 縱使經商收倍利 / 不如逐歲廩禾多
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Where the sources differ
- Line 4: a note in Wikisource's transcription gives 米 for 禾, apparently a variant reading.
English translation, meaning and story summaries are by Cast & Chart.