How to Work with the Oracle of Change: Reading Your I Ching Hexagram

What the I Ching answers, and what it doesn't

The I Ching won't tell you whether something will work out. It describes a situation in motion: where you stand, what is working underneath, and which way things are leaning. That is why open questions get you further than yes-or-no ones. Instead of “Will I get the job?”, try “What matters most for me in this application?” Then the answer has room to show you something, rather than simply confirming a hope or dashing it.

Ask each question once. The book says so itself in hexagram 4, Youthful Folly: whoever asks a second and a third time is being troublesome and gets no instruction. Give an answer time to settle, and ask again only when something has actually changed.

The lines: 6, 7, 8 and 9

Each of your six tosses produces a number. With coins, heads count 3 and tails count 2, so three coins always add up to 6, 7, 8 or 9.

7 and 8 are young lines, and they stay as they are. A 7 is yang, drawn as a solid line; an 8 is yin, drawn as a broken line.

6 and 9 are old lines. They have reached their extreme and are about to turn into their opposite: 9, old yang, becomes yin; 6, old yin, becomes yang. These are the changing lines, marked ○ (9) and × (6) in the figure.

A hexagram is built from the bottom up. Line 1, your first toss, forms the foot of the figure; line 6, your last, forms the top. Books number the lines the same way, so always read a figure from below.

The Judgment and the Image

The Judgment is the oracle's verdict proper, the oldest layer of the text and often only a sentence or two long. It describes the nature of the time: whether it promises success, whether perseverance is needed, whether it is favorable “to cross the great stream”, in other words to attempt something big. Read it first, and let it sink in before you move on.

The Image combines the two trigrams of the figure into a picture from nature, such as “wood growing in the midst of the earth”, and draws a lesson for conduct from it: “the superior man accumulates the small developments of his virtue till it is high and great.” That second half is the practical advice. It doesn't say what will happen; it says how a wise person behaves at such a time.

The short description shown with the two texts is a modern summary. It makes the hexagram easier to approach but is not part of the classical text, and neither are the readings for different areas of life further down the page.

Changing lines: which one counts

Each of the six lines has a text of its own, but you read it only when that line is changing. This is what makes an answer personal: two people can cast the same hexagram and still receive different lines.

When several lines change, they don't all carry the same weight. Tradition offers a simple rule:

• One changing line: its text is the answer.
• Two: read both; the upper one decides.
• Three: read all three; the middle one decides.
• Four: read the two lines that do not change, in the relating hexagram; the lower one decides.
• Five: read the single unchanged line, again in the relating hexagram.
• Six: the judgment of the relating hexagram applies. Hexagrams 1 and 2 have a special text of their own for this case.
• None: the judgment and image alone apply. The situation is at rest, and no second hexagram appears.

The oracle applies this rule for you and highlights the line that matters. The other line texts stay available for reference; they color the answer but don't decide it.

The relating hexagram

When the changing lines flip into their opposites, a second figure appears. The first hexagram shows the situation as it is now; the second, sometimes called the developing hexagram, shows where it is heading if things take their course. Think of it as a direction rather than a forecast, a little like reading the sky: you can see where the clouds are coming from, not whether it will rain tomorrow.

For the second hexagram, read the judgment and the image, not the lines. And read it only after you have finished with the first, so that the present and the tendency don't blur together.

The nuclear hexagram

Take lines 2, 3 and 4 as a lower trigram and lines 3, 4 and 5 as an upper one, and a new figure appears: the nuclear hexagram. It drops the outermost lines, the beginning and the end, and shows what is at work in the middle of the situation, often unnoticed.

Treat it as a secondary aspect, not a second verdict. If it seems to contradict the main hexagram, nothing has gone wrong: a fortunate time can have a delicate core, and a hard time a sound one.

The six places

Every line has a fixed place in the figure, and the place helps define what its text is about:

• 1 – the beginning. Things are just starting and you are still at the foot of the hill; the advice is often to hold back.
• 2 – the center of the inner trigram. Balanced and usually favorable; the reliable helper.
• 3 – the threshold. The passage from inside to outside, where the texts tend to be tense or full of warnings.
• 4 – close to power. The minister beside the ruler; tact and caution are called for.
• 5 – the ruler's place. The center of the outer trigram and the strongest position; here the hexagram shows its full character.
• 6 – the end. The matter is complete or overdone; many texts speak of withdrawal or excess here.

With this grid, many line texts explain themselves. In hexagram 1, the dragon lying hidden in the deep sits in place 1, the dragon on the wing in the sky in place 5, and the dragon that exceeds the proper limits and has occasion for repentance in place 6.

The trigrams

Every hexagram is made of two trigrams of three lines each. The lower one stands for the inner side: you, your attitude, your starting point. The upper one stands for the outer side: your surroundings, other people, the direction in which things are moving.

The eight trigrams carry images from nature: heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain and lake. The image of a hexagram comes from the way its two trigrams combine, and the order matters: water over fire is a different picture from fire over water.

Coins or yarrow stalks

Both methods produce the same four line values; what differs is how often each one turns up. With coins, old yin and old yang are equally likely, one chance in eight each, while young yang and young yin each come up three times in eight. With yarrow stalks the odds are 1/16 for old yin, 5/16 for young yang, 7/16 for young yin and 3/16 for old yang. Old yang therefore appears three times as often as old yin, and young yin a little more often than young yang, so the older method produces more change out of yang and less out of yin.

Which method you choose is a matter of taste. What matters is that you stay with one method for any given question.

Where readings usually go wrong

• Reading too many lines. Go through all six line texts and you will always find something that fits, losing the actual answer on the way. Stick to the rule above.
• Taking the second hexagram as the outcome. It shows a direction, not a result.
• Asking the same question again because you didn't like the answer. The I Ching itself warns against this.
• Looking for confirmation. The most useful answer is often the one you didn't want to hear.
• Reading too fast. A hexagram rewards a second look the next day.