How to Consult the I Ching: Casting, Changing Lines and Reading the Text

The I Ching can be read straight through as a book of wisdom, but for most people it comes alive when it is consulted. A question is asked, a hexagram is cast, and the text is read against the situation. The procedure is simple. Using it well takes a little more care.

This article walks through a consultation from beginning to end: the question, the casting, the changing lines and the second hexagram, the two main layers of text, and the attitude that makes a reading worth having. For the structure of the book itself (yin and yang, trigrams, the sixty-four hexagrams and their order), see the companion article on what the I Ching is.

Start with a good question

The I Ching responds best to clear, grounded questions. Ask about a real situation, decision, attitude or next step. A focused question invites a focused reading.

Good examples are:

• What should I understand about this conflict?
• What is wise in this move?
• What am I not seeing in this partnership?
• What attitude should I take toward this delay?

Weak questions are too vague, too theatrical, or too hungry for certainty. “Will everything be all right?” gives the text nothing to work with. “Will I get the job, yes or no?” asks for a kind of answer the book is not built to give. Instead of demanding a perfect prediction, ask for orientation: what is the nature of this moment, and how should I conduct myself in it?

It helps to write the question down before casting. Writing forces you to decide what you are actually asking, and it gives you a record to return to later.

If you are emotionally flooded, pause first. One honest question is better than ten restless ones. Asking the same question again and again because the first answer was unwelcome is a habit the book itself warns against: in the hexagram Youthful Folly, the oracle says that it answers the first asking, and that repeated, importunate asking receives no instruction.

Casting with three coins

The most common method today uses three coins. You cast the coins six times and build the hexagram from the bottom line upward, one line per throw.

The usual convention gives heads a value of 3 and tails a value of 2. The three coins therefore add up to 6, 7, 8 or 9 on each throw:

• 6: an old yin line, broken and changing.
• 7: a young yang line, solid and stable.
• 8: a young yin line, broken and stable.
• 9: an old yang line, solid and changing.

The odd numbers are yang and the even numbers yin. The “old” lines, 6 and 9, are lines that have reached their extreme and are about to turn into their opposite. They are the changing lines.

Traditional practice values this process because it slows the mind. You ask one clear question, cast with attention, and let the pattern emerge step by step. Six throws is long enough to settle into the question and short enough to keep it in focus.

The older method: yarrow stalks

Older practice used fifty dried stalks of yarrow. One stalk is set aside at the start, and the remaining forty-nine are divided, counted off in fours and gathered again through a series of steps, three rounds for each line, so that building a whole hexagram takes a good while. It is a slower, more ceremonial method.

The two methods do not give quite the same odds. With coins, a changing line of either kind comes up one time in eight. With yarrow, an old yang line is three times as likely as an old yin line, so that yang tends to change more readily than yin. Some practitioners prefer yarrow for this reason as well as for the ritual.

Coin casting is faster, but the aim is the same: not random entertainment, but a disciplined encounter with change. Whatever the method, what matters most is the quality of attention you bring to the question.

Changing lines: where the reading moves

Some lines in a reading are changing lines. These are the most active points in the hexagram. They show where the situation is unstable, transforming, or asking for special care.

Each of the six lines of every hexagram has its own short text, the line statement. When a line is changing, its statement is read along with the main text of the hexagram. A changing line can deepen, sharpen or complicate the main hexagram. It tells you where the issue is alive, and this is often where the advice becomes most concrete.

If a reading feels too broad, start with the changing lines. They often carry the practical key.

When there are no changing lines, the situation is relatively settled, and the hexagram is read as a whole without a second figure. When there are several, readers follow different conventions. Some read every changing line; some give the most weight to the uppermost, or to the one in the ruling position; classical commentators set out detailed rules for each number of changing lines. No single rule is universal. As with any reading system, it is best to choose one approach and apply it consistently.

The second hexagram

When changing lines are present, they point toward a second hexagram. To find it, turn each changing line into its opposite (old yin becomes yang, old yang becomes yin) and leave the stable lines as they are. The result is a new figure, sometimes called the relating or resulting hexagram.

This second figure is not a replacement for the first. It shows what the situation is moving toward, or what becomes visible after the present tension unfolds. The first hexagram describes where you stand; the changing lines show where it is moving; the second hexagram shows the direction of that movement. In the usual practice its main text is read, but not its line statements, since the changing lines belong to the first figure.

The Judgment and the Image

Most I Ching readings are approached through at least two layers of the text: the Judgment and the Image.

The Judgment is the short statement attached to the hexagram as a whole, traditionally attributed to King Wen. It states the main condition, often with advice about conduct, timing or outcome. It tends to be direct. It may speak of success, danger, perseverance, blame or advantage, and it uses a small vocabulary of recurring formulas: “perseverance furthers”, “no blame”, “misfortune”, “it furthers one to cross the great water”.

The Image comes from one of the Ten Wings. It draws symbolic meaning from the two trigrams and then says how the wise person responds. The Image of the first hexagram, Heaven doubled, sees heaven moving with tireless strength and draws the lesson that the noble person should make himself strong and untiring. The Image is more reflective than the Judgment. It connects natural forces with human behaviour.

Read them together. The Judgment tells you what kind of moment this is. The Image tells you how to inhabit it.

When both point the same way, the message is strong. When they feel different, look more closely. That tension is often where real insight begins.

Putting a reading together

A simple order for working through a reading:

1. Reread your question.
2. Look at the two trigrams and their image before reading any text. Let the shape speak first.
3. Read the Judgment for the overall condition.
4. Read the Image for the right attitude.
5. Read the statements of any changing lines, and ask where in your situation they apply.
6. If there is a second hexagram, read its Judgment as the direction of travel.
7. Write down, in a sentence or two, what you take the reading to say.

That last step matters more than it seems. A reading you have summarised in your own words is one you can test against what happens.

Reading change, not fate

The I Ching is strongest when you use it to read change. It shows tendencies, pressures, ripening conditions and the quality of a moment. It does not trap you inside one fixed future.

This makes the oracle practical. If a reading shows blockage, that is not final doom. It may be telling you the time is wrong, the approach is wrong, or patience is part of the work. Many hexagrams describe difficulty precisely in order to say how to meet it.

Likewise, a favourable reading is not permission to become careless. Good timing still asks for right conduct, and the text repeatedly ties good fortune to perseverance and correct behaviour.

Readings become more valuable when you return to them after life moves. Then you begin to see how the text speaks in patterns, and how wisdom often means aligning yourself with change instead of fighting it.