I Ching Hexagram 25
Hexagram 25: Wu Wang (无妄)
Composed of 震 (Zhen) below and 乾 (Qian) above · innocence · integrity · not-forcing · unexpected
The Judgment
无妄：元亨利贞。其匪正有眚，不利有攸往。
Wu Wang: a sound beginning, open course, real benefit, and firmness in what is right. Whatever you have not straightened has a fault already on its way, and it is not favourable to have somewhere to go. The four opening characters are an instruction in themselves - begin it straight, let it run, then hold it where it is correct.
Translation notes
- 无妄: Wilhelm renders "Innocence" — 妄 means fabrication, delusion, what has been made up in the mind - the classical gloss is 妄, 诈也, falsehood and deceit. 无妄 is therefore not childlike purity or naive good nature; it is the condition of acting without a preconceived scheme or a manufactured expectation. The difference is practical, not decorative: innocence asks you to be good, whereas Wu Wang asks you to notice what you had already decided before you walked in.
- 其匪正有眚: Wilhelm renders "If it be not correct, there will be disaster" — 正 here is a verb, to make straight or to repair, and 匪 is the negative particle, so the clause reads as a failure to straighten something - an unfinished repair, not a description of somebody's character. Read that way the sentence is about self-correction: whatever you have left crooked has a fault already on its way to you.
The judgment above quotes the classical Chinese of the Zhou Yi (public domain); the English gloss and modern reading are our own. Compare with James Legge's The I Ching (Sacred Books of the East, Vol 16) , 1882 (public domain).
Quick Answers
Is hexagram 25 (Wu Wang) good or bad?
It is good, and its goodness is entirely conditional on conduct rather than on luck. The judgment opens with the full sequence of opening, success, benefit and rightness - but closes by ruling out any move made on a scheme. Its judgment depends on one thing: whether you are acting straight, or acting out of a plan you constructed first.
What does hexagram 25 (Wu Wang) mean in love?
It means say the real thing and wait. It favours plain approaches over clever ones, and it is unusually tolerant of losses that turn out to be nobody's fault. In a relationship the key instruction is to leave a small unexplained grievance alone instead of escalating it, and to avoid making a major move simply because you feel unusually clear-headed.
What happens when line 5 of hexagram 25 (Wu Wang) changes?
九五 turning yin gives Hexagram 21 (Shi He, Biting Through). The present line is the most-quoted caution in the book: an illness with no cause behind it, do not reach for medicine, and there will be joy - the complaint passes if you stop treating it. The changed picture says the opposite, and the reversal is the useful part: what you had been writing off as passing was a genuine obstruction, and it now has to be cut through properly instead of waited out.
The Six Lines
Read your line of interest below. Lines are read from the bottom (line 1) to the top (line 6). A changing line means the hexagram is transforming — see the related hexagrams at the bottom.
初九
无妄，往吉。Without falseness, going forth is good. Changing the bottom line turns Wu Wang into Hexagram 12 (Pi, Standoff).
Straight out of the gate, with no scheme attached, the move works. The first line is the simplest promise in the hexagram: the beginning itself is favourable as long as you do not put a hidden agenda under it.
六二
不耕获，不菑畲，则利有攸往。One does not plough and then reap, nor open up new ground and then plant it; on that account it is advantageous to have somewhere to go. Changing line 2 turns Wu Wang into Hexagram 10 (Lu, Treading).
You cannot harvest a field you never ploughed, and you cannot take from ground you never broke. This line rules out shortcuts and points somewhere practical instead: go and do the unglamorous preparation, because the result is not available before the work is.
六三
无妄之灾，或系之牛，其人于行，邑无眚。A disaster that carries no falseness behind it: someone ties up a cow, and the man it belongs to comes along the road; in the village there is no fault. Changing line 3 turns Wu Wang into Hexagram 13 (Tong Ren, Fellowship).
The cow wandered and got tied up, and its owner was simply the one who happened to be walking past. This is bad luck, and the last three characters are the point: the village is not blamed. Some losses are nobody's doing, and the useful response is to let them be nobody's fault.
九四
可贞，无咎。One can hold firm. No blame. Changing line 4 turns Wu Wang into Hexagram 42 (Yi-Increase).
This is the position line, and the classical note is worth keeping: the place is not the right one for a strong line, but the substance underneath is real, and the substance is what saves it. Hold what you actually have to offer, do not force the role you are in, and the mistake stays a manageable one.
九五
无妄之疾，勿药有喜。An illness that carries no falseness behind it: do not reach for the medicine, and there will be joy. Changing line 5 turns Wu Wang into Hexagram 21 (Shi He, Biting Through).
The most quoted line of the hexagram, and the easiest to abuse. It is a complaint that is not a disease - something that would pass on its own - and the instruction is not to escalate the response to match the anxiety. The word 勿 is doing the whole work here.
上九
无妄，行有眚，无攸利。Without falseness - to act now brings a fault, and there is no advantage in going. Changing the top line turns Wu Wang into Hexagram 17 (Sui, Following).
Good intentions are not the same as a good time, and the top line is out of position. Nothing in the motivation is wrong and nothing in the timing is right. The line closes the hexagram by refusing the urge to act simply because you feel clear-headed.
Hexagram 25 in Love, Career & Decisions
Love & Relationships
Judgment: favourable for the straightforward approach, unhelpful for the calculated one. Single: 六二 governs, and it says plainly that you cannot reap a field you never ploughed - no instant result from a profile, an introduction, or a clever opening line. 六三 gives the other half: some things simply do not work out, and the village is not blamed, so let a dead end stay a dead end instead of turning it into a theory about what you did wrong. Partnered: 九五 is the useful line, since the reply to a small unexplained complaint is to leave it alone rather than escalate. 上九 warns against forcing the big move out of a clear-headed mood.
Say plainly what you want and ask one plain question, and do not follow up on it with an argument built out of your own expectations.
Career & Work
Judgment: yes to the straightforward version, no to the engineered one. The reading fits work where the job has to actually be done - a role considered because it is legitimate rather than impressive, a team declining a political shortcut, a project where the unglamorous preparation is the point. Signal: 六二 says the result is not available before the preparation, so a plan that skips straight to the outcome is the failure mode. 九五 is worth a second look in organisations, because a problem being over-treated is common - the fix on the table is heavier than the fault, and installing it costs a quarter. 九四 adds the personal note: your position may be wrong for you while what you bring is real, and both can be true at once.
Do the unglamorous preparatory work before asking for the outcome, and check whether the fix on the table is larger than the problem it is aimed at.
Making a Decision
Conditional yes, with a hard boundary. Proceed when the decision is taken straight from what is in front of you, with no story attached and no second motive you have not admitted. The judgment rules out a whole class of move explicitly - it is not favourable to have somewhere to go, which here means do not set out pursuing an engineered outcome. What to watch is the top line: being free of self-deception does not make now the right moment, and 上九 is a strong line out of position, going anyway. So ask not whether you are being honest with yourself - the hexagram assumes you are - but whether timing and position hold up independently of your clarity.
Proceed on the direct reading of the facts, and refuse any version of the plan whose main argument is that you have worked out what everyone else is doing.
Health & Wellbeing
Tone: calm and undramatic, with a strong pull toward restraint. Wu Wang is unusually blunt about over-treatment: there is a line that says plainly that a complaint without a cause behind it should not be given medicine, and the wider reading is that things which are not faults should not be addressed as faults. Applied to ordinary wellbeing this favours the natural course, sleep and daylight and meals on schedule, over any elaborate intervention adopted during a bad week. The judgment also says that whatever you have not put right will announce itself, so tracking an unresolved small thing is more useful than trying to feel better. For entertainment and reflection only, not medical advice.
Leave one small unresolved complaint alone for two weeks and watch what it does on its own before you do anything about it.
Cast This Hexagram Yourself
Ask your own question and let the three coins decide which hexagram answers it.
Start a Free Reading →