Should I go after a contractor who used me and stole from me.

[JosieR11]

I posed the above question and when I cast got 1. Ch'ien/The Creative changing to 10. Lu/ Treading (Conduct). Is it telling me a lawsuit would pay off or forget about it?

 

[radiofreewill]

Hi JosieR11,

"Should I go after a contractor who used me and stole from me?"
1.3 changing to 10 ~ Maybe...

Sorry to hear that you've run into an unscrupulous contractor!

This is the famous "treading on the tiger's tail" predicament ~ it's all about 'how' you do it, because if you do it unskillfully, you'll get bitten ~ however, if you are skillful, then you will prevail.

This is from Joey Yap's 'Plum Blossom Divination':

"If, despite obvious defects and impediments, one considers oneself strong and presses forward, one invites danger and disaster. This is to go beyond one's strength and capabilities. It is rarely ever justified for a person to be reckless with no regards to one's own adequacy of powers.

"A dogmatic and rigid approach to things is perhaps not the best means possible to resolve matters. It would be a better idea, instead, to remain calm and flexible in one's approach towards solving problems, as it would reduce the amount of stress or hassle in doing so.

"One may be compelled to surmount numerous challenges along the way; although victory will finally be in one's grasp, as far as a legal dispute is concerned."

I hope this helps!

 

[JosieR11]

I`m going to try replying to radiofreewill and Joey Yap`s 'Plum Blossom Divination once again. Hopefully, this time it will work. Thank you both for your replies. According to both of your interpretations, I interpreted the reading all wrong. If I understand you both correctly, you are saying forget about it and move on. That`s really what I wanted to do, even though it was a lot of money and I`m not the only one they have done this to. I`ll just let time and karma take care of them, like it takes care of all of us.

 

[radiofreewill]

Hi JosieR11,

I felt that your question and result didn't fit 'nicely' with the traditional interpretations, so I used Plum Blossom divination, which is based on five elements analysis, and takes into account the nuclear hexagram, as well. Joey Yap's reference book shows the work for all casts that contain only one changing line, like yours.

My interpretation of the reading is that you 'could' go after him and win ~ if done skilfully ~ but you should be prepared for a difficult, and possibly costly, effort.

So, you really have to ask yourself if the amount of money in question is worth the effort?

In my case, I once had a contractor to whom I was a sub-contractor stiff me on $9,600 of work, saying that the customer didn't pay him. That was a lot of money to me, but not enough to justify the time and effort of a court case. So, I went to one of the most prominent lawyers in town and asked what my options were, short of going to court. He said that the contractor doesn't know what you might do to get your money back ~ Let's send him a nasty letter and see what happens? I paid $400 for the letter ~ which was a doozy! A few days later, I received an angry phone call from the contractor, very threatening, but I didn't budge. It worked, and he paid me right after that.

I don't know your situation, but it might be worth talking to a lawyer about?

I'm also with you ~ karma will catch up to that guy, sooner or later...

I hope this helps?

 

[Liselle]

Hold on, there seems to be confusion - if the reading was 1.3 > 10 then you did not get the "treading on the tiger's tail" line, you got this line -

1.3
‘Noble one creates and creates to the end of the day,
At nightfall on the alert, as if in danger.
No mistake.’

- which, however, still might have things in common with what Radiofreewill said:

...it's all about 'how' you do it, because if you do it unskillfully, you'll get bitten ~ however, if you are skillful, then you will prevail.

1.3 says this will be a lot of work, and you will have to be alert to danger ('skillful' certainly seems part of that), and 10 as the relating hexagram says you're up against a formidable, powerful opponent. It ends with the omen words "no mistake" (or "no fault," "no blame," "not an error" etc., depending on the translation). There are lines in the I Ching which end with "good fortune," and this isn't that, but it's also not "pitfall."

I think as advice it might be something like, "Here's what you'll be up against, how do you feel about that?" If you go ahead, you won't be making a mistake, per se.

At least that's what I get from the reading. From what you said it seems you'd rather not take this on, and I don't see any reason why that's not in keeping with the reading. It's describing what it will entail, and you can either take that on or not.

I think the description of hard work, some danger, a need for alertness is pretty clear, but the "no mistake" might be less clear. What I mean by that is there are different ways to think about "no mistake" ("no blame," "not an error").

• "Even if I'm not successful, I won't have to look back on it and think it was the biggest mistake of my life." Or:
  
• "Doing this is not a mistake" in the sense of not doing it might be a mistake, if that makes any sense. Personal example: I had put off doing something for someone that needed to be done. One evening I asked about it, and got this line. I wasn't overjoyed, but I stayed up half the night and got it done. It really did need to be done, and I should have done it before then. The world would not have come to an end if I hadn't done it that night, but it did mean that much less time the other person had to get along without, which of course was better for the other person. As in, I'd already put this off and put it off, and I could avoid making an already bad situation even a little bit worse by just getting it done, now.

So it might somewhat depend on what exactly you think the sense of "no mistake" is, but I think mostly Yi's saying, "here's what this will be like, how do you feel about that?" So think about the downside of not doing it, and weigh that against the huge effort you'd have to make.

I mean, in my example, I made that calculation and decided I could not live with making the other person wait any longer. If I'd gotten the same reading weeks earlier, I might have decided it could wait.

 

[Liselle]

And see, the more I think about your situation as if it was me, I'm thinking things like, "Well, I'm being asked to consider whether a huge amount of work is worth it, and maybe that depends on what the outcome would be." In other words, a legal fight might be worth it if I'd win and get my money back and maybe teach the jerks a lesson. But if I'm not going to win - well who wants to instigate a legal fuss and then lose it? Probably not me.

Are there any preliminary steps you can take to try to suss out your chances? Could you talk to a lawyer just to see what they think? Do lawyers do that? I have no idea.

 

[Liselle]

Oh dear, I see my first post crossed with radiofreewill, and then I didn't notice his when I posted my second one, either. Apologies...

(But we seem to be saying similar things, which I generally find comforting!)

 

[JosieR11]

To all the nice folks responding to my reading. This whole thing is my fault right up front because my intuition was screaming "DANGER". I don`t like being unfair and was afraid I was misjudging. My first impression of him when I opened the door was, "This guy could murder me." Well, after I got him out of my house 6 months later, I found out he had beaten someone to death with a baseball bat, wrapped him in a tarp and thrown him in a creek. He didn`t even go to trial for it. The police and the D.A. goofed up. My first impression of his wife/girlfriend, who did the creative billing, was that she was a psychopath. She later informed me she had been through psychoanalysis .Can`t cure a psychopath. The first lawyer I saw about this fiasco turned out to be a long time friend of hers. I`m not making this up. I lost a very large sum of money to them, because i was afraid to fire them, for obvious reasons. So I`m probably not a skillful person and as far as the tiger`s tail goes, I was tripping all over it. They bought a big fancy truck with lots of chrome, several acres of land and built a house on it. That was with my money. You can`t hide those things. When I finally let them know I was on to them, they tried to set me up to blackmail me. Didn`t work, but you see what I`m up against. Both of them being psychopaths, they definitely are formidable opponents. They do this to everyone, but no one has gone after them. My next door neighbor is a Federal Judge (USA) with senior status and his wife is a defending attorney. They recommended a lawyer to me, so maybe I should go for it. If I don`t win and I don`t end up dead or missing, maybe I can write a novel. The I Ching has served me well in the past, but this reading had me confused. I thank you all for your contributions.

 

[Thinkclear]

... The I Ching has served me well in the past, but this reading had me confused.

Try LiSe's translation (also the mirror translation of hex 1.3) I think that will make things clear for you.

 

[Trojina]

As Liselle said you did not get 10.3, you got 1.3>10.

I think this is a line of sympathy and I think the answer is broader than the question here. It looks like you are inundated with all sorts of cares, hence it says 'noble one creates and creates till the end of the day'. These are times when a person has so much on their plate, things coming from all sides, they are even awake late into the night thinking. But this is no mistake here. It's all a part of beginning to manifest the creative in your life.

I see the cast as 'well you really have many burdens right now, so much to do, so much to think about, it is incredibly stressful to the nerves BUT it's okay, it is just the nature of the time you are in'. It's a line I often associate with creative endeavour or moving house ! In terms of your actual question I think Yi is saying it's just another thing you have to deal with at this time but it's no huge disaster. Yi does have a different perspective to us of course.

So yes follow it up as part of all the other things you are doing to build your life at this time...well unless you really do fear being killed or injured of course.

 

[Liselle]

Well this has taken a turn. I thought it was (merely) about a contractor who gypped you, but you're actually in fear for your life with these people.

But yes, as Trojina explained, the side of this reading you're on is the "busy/burdened/stressful" side, not the "be eaten" side. The relating hexagram, and the fan yao(corresponding line in the relating hexagram, 10.3 in this case) can easily reflect your worries, but it's not your answer.

If it was me with this reading, I'd probably at least meet with the attorney you've been referred to. Thankfully you have excellent friends/neighbors.