What is the Book of Changes?
The I Ching - the Book of Changes - is the world's oldest oracle.
It is also an ancient book of Chinese
wisdom; the accumulated experience of over 2,500 years of diviners and sages.
The I Ching as you find it today
is a collection of texts - years of interpretations, layered on one another to the present.
What will an I Ching reading tell me?
First and foremost, the I Ching tells you what your situation is now.
The I Ching views
all that happens to us as part of natural flows of energy.
To understand what you should do, you need to know where
you are - now - in that flow of energy. Your main reading, or hexagram, will tell you that.
Your
hexagram may include changing lines. Changing lines give specific advice about the message.
Changing
the changing lines to their opposites - yin to yang, or vice versa - gives you a new hexagram, which is your future
message. The future message tells you where the flow of energy will be heading.
How do I get a reading?
You consult the I Ching by asking a question, and then:
1. Shake three coins in your hands, like you
would dice, and then drop them.
2. Count heads as three and tails as two. Add the value of the three coins.
Three tails equals 6, two tails and one heads equals 7, two heads and one tails equals 8, three heads equals 9.
3.
If the number is 7 or 9, draw an unbroken line. If the number is even, draw a line that is broken in the center. This
is your first line. Write down its number value next to it.
4. Throw the coins again, going through the same process
as above. Draw this line above the first line.
5. Repeat this procedure until you have six lines,
with the first line you drew at the bottom, and the last line you drew at the top.
6. This will give you your six-lined
message, or hexagram.
For example, hexagram No. 3, Difficulty at the Beginning, will look
like this:
Sixth line ____ ____ 6
Fifth
line _________ 7
Fourth line ____
____ 8
Third line ____ ____
6
Second line ____ ____ 8
First line __________
9
A 6 is a yin changing line, and a 9 is a yang changing line.
You can access a key to the hexagrams, and the basic Wilhelm text, on the Web by
going to http://www.pantherwebworks.com/I_Ching/.
When you are getting started, it is best to get a book version, and
the simpler, the better. I have listed a few of my favorites in the Recommended Texts sections.
