The I Ching (易经, the Book of Changes) is built from sixty-four hexagrams — stacks of six broken or solid lines. It has been consulted for over three thousand years, and its structure has not changed in that time. You do not need to believe in anything to use it; the classical frame is simply that the moment of asking is itself information.
The three-coin method
The standard modern method uses three coins, cast six times. Each toss produces one line, from the bottom up. Coins have a value — conventionally heads = 3 and tails = 2 — and the three coins together give a total of 6, 7, 8 or 9:
- 6 — three tails: old yin, a changing broken line (⚋)
- 7 — one head: young yang, a solid line (⚊)
- 8 — two heads: young yin, a broken line (⚋)
- 9 — three heads: old yang, a changing solid line (⚊)
Only the “old” lines — 6 and 9 — change. A changing yin becomes yang; a changing yang becomes yin.
Primary hexagram, then the change
Cast all six lines and you have your primary hexagram: the situation as it stands. Where old lines appear, they mark the places where the situation is already moving. Read those changing lines’ texts, then transform them (yin to yang, yang to yin) to build the transformed hexagram: where the situation is headed.
穷则变，变则通，通则久 — at the limit, things change; changed, they flow; flowing, they endure.I Ching · 系辞
How to ask well
The quality of an I Ching reading depends more on the question than the cast. Ask one concrete question about a situation — “How should I approach this?” — rather than a yes/no gamble. The classic texts read best as counsel about how to move, not predictions of what will happen. The full method of asking is in this essay.
Cast it now
The OmniDraco I Ching page handles the whole ritual for you: tap to cast three coins six times, see your hexagram with its name, its changing lines, and the hexagram it becomes — with a plain-English reading of each. Deterministic, free, and it takes under a minute.
Dig deeper: the BaZi chart — free, deterministic and in plain English.