Guan Yin lot 63 of 100
A needle lost at sea
Even (中平). Grade from the related Goodfate edition. Grades differ between temples, and many Taiwanese temples print none.
昔日行船失了針
今朝依舊海中尋
若還尋得原針在
也費工夫也費心
Long ago, sailing, you lost a needle.
Today you search the sea for it again.
Even if you found the very same needle,
It would cost you labor, and cost you heart.
What this lot says
Searching the sea for a needle dropped years ago is about as hard as a task gets. The verse allows that you might find it, and counts the cost even then.
So weigh the cost. Some lost things deserve the effort, and many can be replaced for less.
If you keep going back to an old job, a past partner or a failed idea, ask what you would actually have if you recovered it. Compare that with what the same time could build now.
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
Searching the sea for a needle (海中尋針)
Named for this lot in the related Goodfate edition.
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author. No single original edition is known and wording differs between temples, so we compare named witnesses and record where they differ.
Míguāng (覓光) (the text shown above)
昔日行船失了針 / 今朝依舊海中尋 / 若還尋得原針在 / 也費工夫也費心
Retrieved 2026-11-08
Jiěqiān Gé (解籤閣)
昔日行船失了針 / 今朝依舊海中尋 / 若還尋得原針在 / 也費工夫也費心
Retrieved 2026-11-08
Goodfate (今日運勢), a related edition
昔日行船失了針 / 今朝依舊海中尋 / 若還尋得原針在 / 也費功夫也費心
Retrieved 2026-11-08
Where the sources differ
- Line 4 reads 也費功夫也費心 in the related Goodfate edition.
English translation and commentary are by Cast & Chart.