How to Read the I Ching: a Quick Guide.
The I Ching is a potent divination tool with at least 3000 years of recorded history, and roots that stretch back much further into China’s enigmatic past. There are many ways to consult its pages, so today I’ll just dive into what I see as the “easiest”, based on the Richard Wilhelm translation (more on that later).
Two editions of the I Ching and some casting coins.
But first of all, a bit of context: the core of the I Ching, also known as the Yi Jing or Book of Changes, is a divination manual that was properly compiled in the Western Zhou period in China (approx 1000BC). This is the part of the text that the diviner primarily consults, as the many commentaries added to the text over the centuries tend to take on a more philosophical angle. The original text is made up of 64 hexagrams, each one a symbol made of 6 broken or unbroken lines, that describe a specific answer or situation.
When asking a question, the diviner “generates” a hexagram by producing a sequence of 6 random numbers, then turns to that page in the book and reads the answer given.
What sets the I Ching apart from other divination methods however is the “changing lines” that may appear in each hexagram. Depending on the numbers generated, some lines in the produced hexagram can be “flexible” - they provide an extra detail compared to just the base hexagram. These changing lines make the I Ching a very specific oracle, with over 4000 unique possible casting combinations that can lead to extremely pointed advice for every question you ask.
There are many editions of the I Ching available on the market. I use the Richard Wilhelm translation as my primary reference method. This doesn’t mean that I see it as the most accurate translation - indeed, there are several translation errors such as Heaven ( 天 ) being mistranslated as God throughout the work to cater to Wilhelm’s worldview and western audience. However, I do see it as a translation which encapsulates the seriousness, mystery and reverence that the source text enjoys in its original Classical Chinese, and so for native English speakers it’s the one I generally recommend.
And now the method. You can use many things to generate a hexagram, including the traditional yarrow stalks or moon blocks in some cases. I use the 3 coin method described in the Richard Wilhelm translation, as I find it the easiest and most portable for day-to-day use. First, you’ll need to understand how to generate the different types of lines that make up a hexagram.
The Lines:
An I Ching hexagram is made up of broken “Yin” lines and unbroken “Yang” lines.
Yin and Yang lines.
To generate one of these lines, toss 3 coins. Every Heads result is worth 3 “points”, and every Tails result is worth 2 “points”. So, if you tossed all 3 coins and got 1 Heads and 2 Tails, that would add up to 7 points. In this way, each time you toss 3 coins you can reliably generate a random number of points between 6 and 9.
Hexagrams are made up of 6 broken or unbroken lines, drawn from the bottom upwards. If the points add up to 6 or 7, draw a broken Yin line. If the points add up to 8 or 9, draw an unbroken Yang line. Write the number of points next to each line you draw as shown below - it’s important later.
A hexagram being drawn from the bottom upwards.
If any of your coin tosses produced a 6 or a 9, the resulting line is a “changing line”. This means it gives you an extra detail during the reading. It’s important to take note of these lines by highlighting them in some way. One way is to mark them on the hexagram you draw, with a cross in a Yin line or a circle on a Yang line, as shown below.
A hexagram with the changing lines marked.
Performing the Reading:
Once you’ve got your complete hexagram, you’ll need to look it up in your edition of the I Ching. Many books will have some kind of table to help you do this, so you can look up the hexagram by its top and bottom halves. In the Richard Wilhelm translation, it’s right at the back of the book, just after the Index. You can also find one at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagram_(I_Ching).
Then you can just read the entry for the hexagram and interpret it according to your question. Remember to look at any changing lines at the back of the entry, e.g. 9 in the second place means X. These places are counted from the bottom up in your hexagram, so the second place is second from the bottom, 6th place is at the very top etc.
Example Reading:
A client asks the question, “should I move cities?” and I generate the following hexagram:
An example hexagram.
I look up the hexagram in a table and see it is hexagram 24. I turn to the relevant page in my I Ching. One line that sticks out immediately from the Judgement section of the description is “it furthers one to have somewhere to go.” The commentary goes on to describe how a transformation will come at the right time (likely after the midwinter period between December and January), not by force, mirroring the death and rebirth of the seasons. The changing line, 6 in the fifth place, clarifies that the client should take advantage of the next natural opportunity and not be weighed down by previous instances of failure or feelings of guilt. The overall conclusion I draw is that the client should move cities, and an opportunity for them to do this easily will present itself after midwinter - in the meantime, they shouldn’t put pressure on themselves to rush into it.
And that’s it! Once you have a method for generating a hexagram, the I Ching is really quite an easy oracle to read, but contains thousands of unique possible outcomes for your question. You may choose to further develop your own understanding of the hexagrams by looking into the 8 trigrams and other aspects of Chinese philosophy and folk belief. However, for individual questions just reading the relevant pages and changing lines in your I Ching book will provide plenty of detail.
I hope this has clarified how to read the I Ching, and you can now confidently take advantage of this powerful divination method.