The Shikongren Method: Cases, Volume Two

Translator's note. Two classroom readings, both from ordinary gestures. A student touches his upper lip and the table yields three separate histories — a boast, an unforgettable meal, an emotional high. A phone falls and cracks its case, and the components of the scene (the phone, the retrieving, the case, the ground) are read one by one. The last exchange is the interesting one: from the reported facts, Lü reasons backwards to the gesture, and is confirmed. The X's are the author's, who withholds the timing keys to keep the method from being learned in ten examples.

What follows are live case readings by Lü Wen-yi in the hundred-day top-predictor intensive. Through them you can understand the whole of the Shikongren method — and the essential difference between it and the “external response,” “body and use,” “analogy” and “image and meaning” methods you think you know, which have no logic at all and rest on random imagining. You will also understand why those methods are not fit to tie this one's shoes.

Enough talk; let the cases speak. Because the method is very simple, the key words in these cases are replaced with X to keep it confidential. Written out in full, ten or a dozen cases would teach you the whole thing, and Teacher Lü would have nothing to eat. A man must eat, so a little is withheld. Forgive me.

Classroom case one.

During the lecture, Teacher Lü saw a student rub his upper lip with his hand.

Analysis on the spot:

1. The mouth stands for people, matters and things connected with expression.

1. Rubbing is a sign of satisfaction.

1. Rubbing the lip: (a) it means the student has said something he is pleased with, done something he is pleased with, or spread news he is pleased with — for instance, posted a false item that drew three million hits, felt very pleased, and was then arrested by the public security bureau. The time of the event is recent, and at the points marked X and X. (b) It also means that recently, and at the points marked X and X, he ate something he cannot forget — he went south and someone treated him to puffer fish, or to snake, or he travelled and ate the local bees and grasshoppers: in short, something strange and rarely eaten. (c) The lips are also closely bound up with feeling, so recently, and at the points marked X and X, he also had a good experience in that domain.

The student's feedback:

1. In the year X he studied Teacher Lü's online course and also lectured to new students on it, and was praised.

1. In the year X he ate an enormous lobster, which he remembers to this day.

1. In the year X he averted a crisis in an elderly person's illness and helped bring that person back from the brink of death — helping another, and being pleased with himself. Saving the old person was also a matter of feeling, and touching the mouth is closely tied to feeling. Feeling need not mean romantic feeling: the birth of a long-wanted baby, the appearance of a friend whose interests match yours — all are good experiences of feeling. Bringing an old person back, being praised for it, being commended, is also a good experience of feeling.

Classroom case two.

A student asked: “When I got up at noon my phone fell on the floor. I got up quickly and picked it up. The phone was not damaged, but the case cracked. It still works.” How does the Shikongren method read this?

Teacher Lü analysed on the spot:

1. The phone fell. (a) A phone is closely bound up with information and messages. (b) The phone flying out of the hand has two meanings: on one hand, there was some information he ought to have known and did not; on the other, he passed on some important information to others. (c) The time is recent, and at the point marked X.

1. He got up quickly and retrieved it. (a) Retrieving the phone means he obtained important information or news. (b) The phone is a tool; leaving and coming back means a replacement or a servicing of a tool he commonly uses. (c) The time is recent, and at the point marked X.

1. The case cracked. (a) First, it is information of loss of money, since the case is property, and a crack means it must be replaced. (b) Second, the case protects the phone and has the meaning of the seal; a crack in the seal means a loss in a matter connected with the seal. (c) The time is recent, and at the point marked X.

1. It fell on the ground. (a) The phone is sha — sand — and falling to the ground means inauspicious sand has appeared on the ground. But it appeared only very briefly and was retrieved at once, so its influence is small and need not be read. One may read it: sand appearing on the ground means a problem in expression; it also means loss and drain, emotional fluctuation, and information of bodily or mental injury. All of these, however, are minor, because the inauspicious sand was there only a moment.

The student's feedback:

1. In the month X of the year X he broke off relations with a friend, and suffered a little emotional damage.

1. Recently, on the day X, his stomach was uncomfortable and he fell ill.

1. In the year X his vehicle was damaged and he replaced four tyres; he also secretly moved his ancestral grave.

1. In the year X he lost money investing in a trading company, and the right-hand door of his car was damaged.

Teacher Lü's reading: secretly moving the ancestral grave has no connection with the environmental event recorded here, because an ancestor is not a tool. But from what he reported about the grave we can reason backwards: he probably took the case off to check the phone after retrieving it, found the phone undamaged and the case cracked. That represents a process in which the seal (the case) and the tool (the phone) separated — which can be read as a separation in a matter connected with the seal.

Student's feedback: at the moment it fell, the phone and the case came apart.

Teacher Lü: then that is right. The phone and the case separated in the fall, so we may read it as a major change in a matter connected with the seal.

With the Shikongren method, when we see the fact and the outcome we can also reason backwards to the state of the person's action. This strict logic, working forwards to prediction and backwards to inference, is itself ample proof of the accuracy and the truth of the system.