# What is "Destiny Cannot Be Defied"?

During the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a man named Shao Kangchen.

Master Shao was the author of the *Plum Blossom Method of Divination*.

One morning, he cast a divination and calculated that:

A vase in his home would break at noon.

He was curious—

How exactly would the vase break? Why would it break?

So all morning he guarded that vase,

placing it on a table and staring at it intently,

as if protecting a precious treasure.

His wife called him to eat, but he didn't respond.

He feared that the moment he left, the vase would shatter.

By noon, his wife entered the room

and saw him still standing motionless, staring at the vase.

His wife finally lost her patience and said angrily:

"You've done nothing all morning but stare at this broken vase!

You won't eat, you won't work!"

Then,

she suddenly grabbed the vase

and smashed it hard on the ground.

Crash—

It broke.

So we often say:

When we probe into fate and attempt to defy it,

how can we know

whether the very act of "probing fate and then defying it"

is not itself already a part of destiny that was written long ago?