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When Divination Cannot Answer: Which Path Should One Choose?

Chu Ci · Bu Ju (卜居)

When the World Can No Longer Provide an Answer

“What happens when loyalty is no longer understood, integrity is no longer rewarded, and the standards by which society judges right and wrong have become unreliable? Can a person still determine the direction of their own life when neither authority nor divination can provide an answer?”

Bu Ju (Divination), a work preserved in the Chu Ci, presents Qu Yuan in exile, unable to return to court after three years. Having devoted himself to serving his ruler, he finds that sincerity and loyalty have brought neither understanding nor recognition. Rather than accepting the judgments of the world around him, he approaches Zheng Zhanyin, the Grand Diviner, seeking guidance about the path he should follow.

Yet the questions he brings are not ordinary requests for predictions about fortune and misfortune. They concern the fundamental conflict between moral integrity and worldly survival. Should a person remain honest when honesty carries a personal cost? Should one accommodate those in power in order to secure recognition? And when society rewards conformity while disregarding genuine ability, what does it mean to remain faithful to oneself?

The most remarkable feature of Bu Ju lies in its conclusion. Zheng Zhanyin eventually puts aside his divining instruments and acknowledges that the tortoise shell and divining stalks cannot resolve such matters. The responsibility for judgment returns to Qu Yuan himself. What begins as an attempt to consult fate becomes a reflection on the limits of external authority and the necessity of personal choice.

I. When Integrity Conflicts with Survival | A Society That Has Lost Its Standards

“When an era reverses right and wrong, are those who refuse to compromise simply out of step with their time, or has society lost the ability to recognize what is genuinely valuable?”

The central movement of Bu Ju is built upon a succession of contrasting alternatives. Through the recurring expressions ning (寧, “would rather”) and jiang (將, “or instead”), the speaker considers different ways of living: sincerity or calculated accommodation, independent labor or advancement through powerful connections, frank speech or cautious conformity, moral purity or social flexibility. These alternatives create a sustained examination of the relationship between personal convictions and the conditions required for survival.

What makes the questions compelling is that they are not presented as a simple choice between success and failure. A person may achieve security by adjusting to the expectations of others, yet such adaptation can gradually alter the principles by which that person understands their own identity. Conversely, maintaining independence may preserve personal integrity while bringing isolation or material disadvantage. Bu Ju exposes the difficulty of distinguishing practical wisdom from moral compromise when the surrounding environment itself has become unjust.

The poem develops this conflict through images of exceptional horses and ordinary animals, soaring birds and creatures competing for food. These contrasts suggest that different beings possess different capacities and aspirations, yet the world does not necessarily reward them according to their abilities. Excellence may remain unrecognized, while those better adapted to prevailing expectations may obtain greater advantages.

The criticism becomes especially forceful in the celebrated passage describing a world where the wings of a cicada are treated as heavy while a thousand jun are considered light, where the great musical bell is discarded while an earthen vessel resounds like thunder, and where slanderers rise to prominence while worthy individuals remain unknown.

The image of Huangzhong (黃鐘) is particularly significant. In ancient Chinese musical thought, Huangzhong represented a foundational pitch within the system of musical regulation. Its symbolic destruction therefore suggests more than the rejection of a beautiful sound. It evokes a society in which the standards used to distinguish quality, proportion, and value have themselves become distorted.

This is also where Bu Ju connects with a broader reflection on rhythm and civilization. Every society develops systems through which it recognizes achievement, distributes authority, and determines which voices deserve attention. Yet these systems do not necessarily preserve a reliable relationship between visibility and merit. A voice may become increasingly influential without becoming more truthful, while a person of genuine ability may remain unheard.

When volume replaces substance, recognition can become detached from value. The danger is not merely that a principled individual may suffer, but that an entire society may begin rewarding precisely the behavior that undermines its own moral and institutional foundations.

Bu Ju does not claim that every uncompromising person is necessarily correct, nor that adaptation is always a betrayal of principle. Its deeper concern is the moment when external success becomes the dominant measure of human worth. Under such conditions, an individual may be forced to choose between receiving approval and remaining faithful to convictions that society no longer recognizes.

Perhaps those who appear unsuited to their age are not always the ones who have lost their way. Sometimes the age itself has lost the standards by which their worth could be understood.

II. Giving Bu Ju a New Voice | The Limits of Divination and the Responsibility of Choice

“Divination may offer guidance about fortune and misfortune, but it cannot determine what a person ought to uphold. The responsibility for choosing a life cannot ultimately be transferred to an external authority.”

In the summer of 2025, I transformed Bu Ju into a musical work with the assistance of artificial intelligence, as part of my broader project of giving the classical texts of the Chu Ci a contemporary musical voice. The resulting recording lasts approximately four minutes and follows the original literary text, allowing its recurring questions and contrasting alternatives to be encountered through sound.

Unlike a conventional song built around a repeated chorus, Bu Ju develops through a sequence of moral questions. Its structure resembles a dialogue in which each possible answer produces another difficulty. The musical interpretation does not reconstruct ancient Chu music. Rather, it creates a contemporary listening experience in which the philosophical movement of the text can be heard alongside its poetic language.

The conclusion marks an important change in the direction of the work. Zheng Zhanyin acknowledges that different instruments and forms of knowledge possess different limitations. A measuring unit may be useful in one situation and insufficient in another; human intelligence and supernatural methods alike have boundaries beyond which they cannot provide certainty.

His final instruction, “Follow your own heart and act according to your own intentions,” does not eliminate uncertainty. Nor does it guarantee that an independent choice will lead to success. Instead, it recognizes that questions concerning conscience, integrity, and the direction of a life cannot be resolved solely by calculating favorable outcomes.

This distinction has acquired renewed significance in the age of artificial intelligence. Modern systems can compare possibilities, process enormous quantities of information, and generate increasingly sophisticated predictions. Yet greater computational capacity does not automatically produce greater moral judgment. An algorithm may estimate the consequences of a decision, but it cannot assume responsibility for the values according to which that decision should be made.

The ancient diviner and the modern algorithm therefore illuminate a similar boundary. Both may assist human understanding, but neither should become a substitute for the individual judgment required when a person must decide what kind of life is worth living.

Video: Chu Ci · Bu Ju — AI Musical Interpretation | 3:57

Epilogue | When the World Loses Its Measure, What Remains?

“An era may determine which voices become the loudest, but it cannot necessarily determine which values deserve to endure.”

Read alongside Xi Song (惜诵), Bu Ju reveals a significant development in the moral questions associated with Qu Yuan. In Xi Song, the central struggle concerns the inability of sincere words to reach those in authority. In Bu Ju, the dilemma moves beyond the failure of communication towards the problem of judgment itself. If the world refuses to recognize integrity, should a person change in order to obtain its approval?

The answer offered by Zheng Zhanyin is neither a prediction nor a command. By putting aside his divining instruments, he acknowledges that some decisions lie beyond the authority of the tools used to seek guidance. His response does not remove the burden of choice. It returns that burden to the person whose life is at stake.

More than two thousand years later, the instruments through which humanity seeks certainty have changed dramatically. Divination shells have given way to statistical models, predictive technologies, and artificial intelligence in many areas of decision-making. Yet the fundamental distinction between information and responsibility remains. We may become increasingly capable of anticipating possible outcomes without becoming equally capable of determining which outcomes are worth pursuing.

The enduring significance of Bu Ju therefore lies not in its ability to reveal destiny, but in its recognition of the limits of prediction. A society may lose its standards of value, and an individual may be unable to control how others judge them. What remains is the difficult responsibility of deciding which principles should continue to guide one’s actions.

The world may change its standards, but it cannot entirely replace the judgment through which a person chooses who they wish to become.

Across Civilizations

King Kaolie, Huang Xie, and Lady Lingyin | Could Fifty-Five Divination Shells Have Foretold the Fate of Chu?

I opened my computer and brought up the archaeological images from Wuwangdun. On the screen, a royal tomb that had remained buried for more than two thousand years gradually revealed its nine-chamber structure. King Kaolie suddenly rose from his seat. “Is that not my own tomb?”

Huang Xie leaned forward to examine the images. “Your Majesty, look at the burial passages and the wooden chambers. The craftsmanship of Chu has survived for more than two thousand years.”

I switched to the photographs of the excavated tortoise shells. “Your Majesty, archaeologists discovered more than a thousand shell fragments at Wuwangdun and reconstructed fifty-five complete divination shells. Among the discoveries was also an ink inscription reading Changling (長霝).”

King Kaolie immediately brightened. “After more than two thousand years, people have even recovered my divination shells?”

Huang Xie studied the dark shells for a moment before turning towards the king. “Your Majesty, Chu possessed methods of divination, established ritual and musical systems, and experienced ministers responsible for governing the kingdom. Why, then, could we not foresee the turning points of our own destiny?”

The king’s smile gradually disappeared. “Lord Chunshen, are you asking why Chu could possess so many instruments of judgment and still make the wrong decisions?”

Huang Xie did not hesitate. “Precisely, Your Majesty. A tortoise shell may reveal an omen, but it cannot distinguish loyal ministers from flatterers on behalf of the ruler. A minister may offer sound advice, but cannot guarantee that the king will accept it. If a court listens only to words it wishes to hear, what use are countless divination shells?”

King Kaolie remained silent for a moment before asking another question. “Then tell me, Lord Chunshen. During all those years when you served me, was there ever a time when you knew something was wrong, yet failed to insist upon your advice?”

For once, Huang Xie had no immediate answer.

Sitting beside them, I could not help laughing. “Your Majesty, that question may be even harder to answer than Qu Yuan’s repeated choices between ning and jiang.”

King Kaolie turned towards me. “Lady Lingyin, your generation can even open the tombs of ancient kings. Surely you must have learned how to avoid the mistakes we made?”

I shook my head. “Your Majesty, we possess tools far more powerful than divination shells. They can calculate, predict, and analyse enormous quantities of information. Yet people still make mistakes. They still prefer to hear what they already believe, and they still sometimes regard sincere warnings as personal attacks.”

The king looked again at the excavated shells. “I believe I finally understand Zheng Zhanyin’s words. ‘Follow your own heart and act according to your own intentions.’ He was not saying that divination was entirely useless. He was saying that certain responsibilities cannot be handed over to a tortoise shell.”

Chu left behind standards for measuring length, systems for regulating musical pitch, and tortoise shells for seeking guidance about fortune and misfortune. Yet the measure of human judgment and integrity could never be entrusted entirely to instruments.

The tortoise shells survived, while the kingdom of Chu passed into history. The questions preserved in Bu Ju, however, have never become obsolete.

I closed the archaeological images, and the computer screen returned to the musical recording of Bu Ju.

Outside, the river wind continued to blow. The ancient tortoise shells rested quietly inside their display case, as though they still held one question that divination had never answered.

Historical and literary note: This fictional dialogue draws upon Chu Ci · Bu Ju, archaeological discoveries from Wuwangdun Tomb No. 1, and the author’s earlier research and writing on Chu civilization. The conversations between King Kaolie of Chu, Huang Xie (Lord Chunshen), and Lady Lingyin are imaginative literary creations, not records of actual historical conversations.