I Ching Explanations

Some background will help you make the best use of I Ching explanations when you cast coins or sticks.

The origins of the I Ching can be traced back over 3,000 years to the Zhou dynasty in China, and its verbal traditions are probably far older than that. Useful not only as a method of divination, the I Ching is a complex text that outlines the principles of change and transformation that are a part of the human condition. This is expressed as the relationship of opposites, the yin and yang, seeking balance.

When using coins or sticks in I Ching fortune telling, the requester thinks of a simple question that has a specific focus and casts either three coins or 49 yarrow sticks to find the answers. The results will be the creation of a hexagram of six stacked lines that are either broken or solid and correspond to one of the I Ching Explanations.

There are 64 possible six-line combinations, or hexagrams, so there are 64 basic explanations in the I Ching. The explanation that corresponds to the seekers hexagram addresses his question and reveals truths that will provide guidance. This is an intimate and sometimes mysterious process. I Ching explanations can appear very poetic and speak to the deepest parts of us. The experience can be liberating as well as enlightening.

It can be challenging to read I Ching explanations because they have so many levels of meaning. The 64 hexagrams fall into eight houses that reflect the essential elements of nature. They are represented by the bottom and top three lines of the hexagram respectively. These are called trigrams and there are two in each hexagram.

When a hexagram is created from six coin tosses in the most common method of divining, there is a chance that one or more of the lines will a moving or changing line. This indicates that aspects of the requester’s situation are in transition. This is one of the ways that the I Ching builds complexity by creating layers of meaning as part of the process of divination. It’s also one of the reasons the I Ching has survived as a popular method of fortune-telling for thousands of years.

You don’t need special equipment to cast coins for an I Ching interpretive reading. There are a number of sites on the web that will give you a virtual reading that will get you started. If you do want to do your own casting, all you need is three coins and a translation of the I Ching explanations:

1. Clear you head and think of a question for which you would like guidance.
2. Toss the three coins into the air. For each coin that comes up heads, assign three points. Assign each coin that comes up tails two points. Add the totals together. Two coins that come up heads and one that comes up tails would give the toss a value of eight.
3. Do this five more times for a total of six tosses. List your totals one on top of the other, starting from the bottom and working up. The total for your last toss will be on top.
4. You are now going to translate the numbers into two types of lines. If a total is an even number, give it a line with a break in the middle. If it’s an odd number, give it a solid line. The only exception is for the numbers six and nine. These are changing or moving lines that represent transitions and are reversed. If the total is a six, give it a solid line, and if it’s a nine, give it a broken line.
5. Replace your totals with the combination of broken and unbroken lines you’ve just created, and make a note of the changing lines. You now have a hexagram that corresponds to a numbered I Ching explanation.
6. To unlock the I Ching explanations, you will need to look up the hexagram by number, as well as any hexagrams created by the changing lines that occurred by casting sixes and nines. You will also need to identify the upper and lower trigrams of your hexagram.
7. Now you have all the information you need to consult the oracle.

For the best results, approach the I Ching with a quiet mind. Choose questions that have a clear focus, but aren’t seeking yes or no answers. Unlocking the secrets of the I Ching is a process of discovery, both of the way opposites work to achieve balance and harmony in nature and in the human spirit.

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