Guanyin fortune stick
17
Middle stick
Don't listen to idle talk about who is right and wrong;
morning and evening, just say your prayers to Amitabha Buddha.
If you take wild talk for the truth,
how can a painted cake stop your hunger?
jadealmanac.com
A painted cake that cannot feed you finds its partner in a famous Cao Cao anecdote. Leading his army on a hot march with no water anywhere, and his soldiers too parched to go on, the Three Kingdoms warlord called out that a grove of plum trees lay just ahead, heavy with sour fruit. At the thought of plums their mouths watered, and they pushed on until they found water. The tale, recorded in the fifth-century collection A New Account of the Tales of the World, gave Chinese the idiom of quenching thirst by thinking of plums. Both images are comfort without substance. A trick may get you to the next well, but it does not feed you, which is why the stick stays middle and warns against taking talk for truth.
Idle talk about right and wrong is gossip, the village habit of judging others. The line asks you to stop listening, and temple readers apply it to rumors at work and family quarrels.
Reciting the name of Amitabha, the Buddha of the Pure Land, morning and evening was the simplest lay devotion. Readers take it as a call to steady the mind with a routine.
Wild talk taken for truth names boasts, promises and tall tales. The warning covers deals and offers that sound certain but rest on nothing that can be checked.
The painted cake comes from a saying of a third-century Wei emperor: a reputation is like a cake drawn on the ground, which no one can eat. Readers apply it to anything that looks real and feeds nobody.
莫听闲言说是非
晨昏只好念弥陀
若将狂话为真实
画饼如何止得饥
Seven characters a line, as printed in the BW Monastery edition.
Sources for the story: https://www.k366.com/guanyin/28875.htm; https://services.shen88.cn/chouqian/guanyin-17.html; https://www.masterseanchan.com/guanyin-oracle/lot-17/; https://www.fatekeep.com/blog/3640.
Optional: the temple way
At a temple the stick is not yours until two moon blocks agree: one flat side up and one round side up, a holy cup.
Stick 17, "A Painted Cake for Hunger", is a middle stick, a mixed stick, good with conditions. With an unsettled heart, reading scripture is wasted; it is like a painted cake, hard to swallow even if you try.
Progress is slow and bumpy.
Investments smooth; don't rush business deals.
Watch out for gossip and talk of right and wrong.
Draw another stick , or for a straight yes or no, throw the moon blocks
The verse follows the BW Monastery edition of the Guanyin set; the English rendering and reading are Jade Almanac's own. A drawn stick is a tradition and a prompt for reflection, not advice about health, money or the law.
