易經 · The Book of Changes
Still your mind. Hold your question clearly. The I-Ching answers not with prediction, but with a mirror held to the moment — a map of the forces at play and where they move.
Ask about the nature of a situation, the right attitude to bring, or the next wise step. Avoid asking for a yes/no verdict or trying to command an outcome.
Casting line 1 of 6…
Browse the full King Wen sequence. Each hexagram names a specific configuration of change.
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The Yìjīng (易經), or Book of Changes, is among the oldest surviving Chinese classics — a divination manual, philosophical text, and cosmological map whose roots trace back more than three thousand years. Its core image is the hexagram, a stack of six lines, each either yin (broken) or yang (solid). Sixty-four such figures describe the archetypal movements of change.
You pose a question, then generate six lines at random — traditionally by tossing three coins or sorting fifty yarrow stalks. Each line may be young (stable) or old (changing). Old lines flip to their opposite, yielding a second hexagram. The oracle's answer lies in the movement between the two and in the specific lines that are transforming.
Begin with the Judgment — a terse verdict on the situation. Then the Image, which translates the figure into a natural metaphor and a lesson for conduct. If any lines are changing, read each one: they describe the specific pressures and choices at play. Finally, the Relating Hexagram (second figure) shows where the situation is tending.
The I-Ching is not fortune-telling. It rewards honest questions and suspicion of easy answers. Read slowly. Read twice. If the text feels opaque, sit with it — the oracle rarely flatters, and its meaning often arrives hours later, sideways, through the door you weren't watching.