About I Ching (Yi Jing)...

The

I Ching or "Yi Jing"

, is one of the oldest known documents in the world.
This "Classic of Change" can be traced as far back as 3000 years in written form, and the Chinese claim that it was passed down as oral tradition for two thousand years before that.

Its longevity isn't the only wonder the I Ching holds claim to.
It also possesses the uncanny ability to actually communicate with anyone who chooses to use it.
This is no fortune-telling gimmick -- in fact, the I Ching often frustrates attempts to divine the future from its pages.
This oracle is solely concerned with the present -- YOUR present.

It takes you past the tunnel vision and gives you a 360 degree view of your situation.
It goes beyond the realm of your five senses and picks up the subliminal signals that sailed right past your conscious awareness to become filed away in your subconscious.
When you are obsessed with a desire, intent on an outcome, the I Ching gently nudges you and says, "Yes, but have you considered this ...?"

This classic's ability to accurately gauge a situation probably seemed like a gift from the gods to the sages who discovered it -- and in a sense, it is.
But modern science is progressively removing the layers of superstition from its legend and replacing it with new understanding that is no less magical.
Like all oracles of the ancient world, the I Ching's message is cloaked in ambiguity.
What makes this oracle ingenious, though, is that its symbols spark the universal archetypes embedded within the Collective Unconscious we all share.
The books of C.G. Jung, one of the three* fathers of modern psychoanalysis, shed light on these archetypes -- a subject much too complex to address here.
Read his foreword in The I Ching Or Book of Changes.
For a quick study, try the entertaining and enlightening writings of Joseph Campbell, for example The Power of Myth
Another secret of the I Ching's accuracy is its division into 64 sections, representing every situation in life that one might find oneself in.
What is truly brilliant about this classic's formula is that every one of these 64 situations can change into any one of the other 63!
Thus the classic's name, Change.

*) Together with Freud and Adler.

Yin/Yang ☯

The I Ching illuminates the principles of the Tao, the universal flow that underlies all action and permeates all being.
These principles are most easily measured in the material world by yin and yang, the polar opposites.
It is the degree of yin and yang present in each of the 64 situations that defines it.
Each polarity helps define a situation, action, or being with its own respective traits, some of which are listed below.

Yin	Yang
negative zero tails passive female receptive dark night cold soft wet winter shadow empty moon valley nadir introverted reactive backward descending intuitive unconscious depths being	positive one heads aggressive male creative light day heat hard dry summer radiance filling sun summit zenith extroverted active forward ascending reasoning conscious heights doing

Coin Method

When consulting the I Ching oracle, a hexagram is built one line at a time, from the bottom up, by throwing three coins.

One side of the coin represents yin

(dark / tails), the other yang

(light / heads).
Yin counts 2 and yang counts 3.

Throwing three coins at once makes four combinations possible:

3 yin (2+2+2)= 6			changing yin
2 yin, 1 yang (2+2+3)= 7			pure yang
2 yang, 1 yin (3+3+2)= 8			pure yin
3 yang (3+3+3)= 9			changing yang

Lines

In the I Ching, the amount of yin or yang present in a given situation is represented by the lines making up that situation's hexagram.

	A broken line represents yin.
	A solid line represents yang.

If either a yin or yang line is red, that line is a changing line, which will transform into its polar opposite during the course of your consultation.

	A red broken line represents a yin line that transforms into a yang line.
	A red solid line represents a yang line that transforms into a yin line.

Lines in your consultation are determined by each of six coin throws.

Trigrams

A trigram is made up of any combination of three yin and yang lines.

In the interpretation of the eight trigrams there are two methods:

Polar: The Fu Hsi arrangement.

Cyclic: The King Wen arrangement.

The interpretation of the trigrams at I Ching Online is based on King Wen.

There are eight possible combinations, each with its own distinct attributes:




Ch'ien / Heaven	Chên / Thunder	K'an / Water	Kên / Mountain



K'un / Earth	Sun / Wind	Li / Fire	Tui / Lake

Hexagrams

A hexagram is made up of two trigrams, one atop the other, for example:

		Line
Upper Trigram:
Tui / Lake

Lower Trigram:
Chen / Thunder

	Hexagram 17: Sui / Following

It is read line-by-line, from bottom to top.
There are 64 hexagrams in all, each representing an archetypal situation in life.

Or in Chinese symbols:

Chinese Hexagrams

The meaning of each hexagram is affected by the presence of changing lines, which in turn point the way to a second, transformed hexagram.
In all, there are 4,096 possible core readings.
With the inclusion of symbols, nuclear trigrams, and other factors, the interpretation possibilities are pushed into the tens of millions.

Some probability calculations for the Coin Method

The chances for the different hexagram lines to occur, according to the 3 coins method are:
		Probability
changing yang		1 / 8
pure yin		3 / 8
pure yang		3 / 8
changing yin		1 / 8

So, for a non-changing line (pure yin or pure yang) to occur, the chance is 3/8 + 3/8 = 3/4
The chance for a changing line (changing yin or changing yang) is 1/8 + 1/8 = 1/4

For all six lines of any hexagram to be non-changing lines, the chance is
3/4 * 3/4 * 3/4 * 3/4 * 3/4 * 3/4 = 729 / 4096 (or ± 18%)

For any hexagram to consist of only changing lines, the chance is
1/4 * 1/4 * 1/4 * 1/4 * 1/4 * 1/4 = 1 / 4096

The chance for a particular hexagram to consist of only changing lines (like hexagram 1 changing into hexagram 2) is 1 in ( 64 * 4096 )
Indeed very small: 1 in 262,144

There are 64 x 64 = 4,096 core readings possible. For any number of changing lines the probabilities are
Changing lines	Formula	Probability
0	1 * 729	729
1	6 * 243	1458
2	15 * 81	1215
3	20 * 27	540
4	15 * 9	135
5	6 * 3	18
6	1 * 1	1

	Σ	4096

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