Also known as Innocence, The Unexpected, Without Falsehood.
The characters 無妄 mean "without falseness" or "without recklessness". Hexagram 25 is about acting from what is genuinely true in you, without scheming or angling for results. It also carries a second meaning: the unexpected, the thing that happens whether or not you earned it.
The figure
Heaven over Thunder. Thunder moves under the sky, and everything it wakes grows according to its own nature. Movement below follows the order above it, without calculation.
The judgment
It begins, opens, pays and holds. Go crooked and there is trouble, and nowhere worth going.
The four words of hexagram 1 return, but with a sharp condition. Stay honest and natural and it all goes through. Bend the truth or chase an angle and nothing is worth doing.
The image
Thunder rolling under the sky and everything true to itself. Meet the season as it comes and let things grow.
Work with the time you're in, not the one you wish for. Give things what they need to grow and let them grow.
The six lines
Counted from the bottom, the way the figure is built when you cast it.
- Line 1, at the bottom. Acting without pretense. It goes well.
- Line 2. Plowing without counting on the harvest, clearing ground without counting on the crop. Do the work for its own sake, and it helps to go ahead.
- Line 3. Trouble you didn't earn. Someone tethers a cow, a traveler walks off with it, and the villager is blamed. Bad luck can land on the innocent.
- Line 4. If you can hold steady, nothing is held against you. Stay with what you know is right.
- Line 5. Sick, though you did nothing to cause it. Skip the remedies; it clears up by itself. Not every problem needs a fix.
- Line 6, at the top. Acting without pretense, but at the wrong time. It goes badly. Even sincere action fails when the moment says stop.
Reading it for a question
Hexagram 25 says be straight. Drop the strategy and do what's honest, then accept that results aren't fully yours to control. If something went wrong that you didn't cause, don't overreact.