Stick No. 34
大舜耕田
Asking about The whole situation · one of the deck's middle-positive grade signs
The short answer
The figure of Shun working the fields of Mount Li, plowing alongside elephants who came of their own accord, is the image this stick hands you.
Reviewed 2026-06-08
Full readingThough abandoned to the fields of the Mountain, He never fails in his love for his unjust parents.
Even wild elephants turned to him and became tame, For his heart's so kind that nobody could blame.
This stick tells the story of Shun, one of China's legendary sage emperors from around 2300 BCE. His stepmother and father treated him terribly — they literally tried to kill him multiple times, burning down his granary and attempting to bury him alive in a well. Yet Shun never retaliated or spoke ill of them.
Instead, he worked quietly in the fields of Mount Li, practicing radical kindness even toward those who wronged him. The legend says that wild elephants would come help him plow, and birds would weed his crops, because his heart was so pure that even animals trusted him. His reputation for goodness eventually reached the previous emperor, who abdicated in Shun's favor.
The story became the ultimate example of how consistent moral behavior, especially in the face of unfairness, eventually transforms everything around you.
The figure of Shun working the fields of Mount Li, plowing alongside elephants who came of their own accord, is the image this stick hands you. He had every reason to grow bitter, every reason to keep score. He didn't. The verse points back at the quiet decency you've been practicing without much applause, the times you chose not to retaliate, the patience you've extended to people who didn't quite deserve it. You may feel unseen right now, even taken for granted. The stick reflects something different back: a reputation is forming around you in rooms you haven't entered yet.
What 中吉 means here is that the harvest is real but slow. You're in the field-tilling phase, not the throne-receiving phase. The danger at this stage is impatience, the urge to start cataloguing your own goodness, to drop hints, to make sure people notice. The moment Shun had needed an audience, the elephants would have wandered off. Your task now is to keep doing the unglamorous, decent thing without auditing whether it's being repaid. The doors open later, and they open because the work was done when nobody was watching.
Keep going with the difficult relationship or situation you've been handling with restraint; this is exactly the field you're meant to be plowing. Resist the urge to vent about it, even to sympathetic friends, because that drains the quiet power of what you're building. Do one small kindness this week for someone who can't repay you.
When credit goes elsewhere, let it; your name is travelling further than you realise. Trust that the elephants are already on their way.
