TL;DR: Consulting the I Ching means building a six-line sign step by step, and there are two established ways of doing it. The toss made with three coins is quick and easy to learn; the classical procedure with fifty yarrow stalks is a ritual whose slowness settles the mind. Both methods produce the same lines, but the odds of the changing lines differ. The lines valued 6 and 9 that the cast produces are the changing lines that give the reading its direction.
Before the Cast: Framing the Question
In the I Ching, the question is as much a part of the craft as the method. The book's language answers the yes-or-no mold poorly; instead of "Should I move?", asking "What kind of period will this move open for me?" makes the sign you receive readable. Writing the question on paper is an old habit: when the cast is finished, you have not forgotten which question the sign came to answer. A quiet corner, a flat surface, and a few minutes of stillness are the invisible materials of the method.
The Three-Coin Method, Step by Step
What you need
Three coins of the same kind are enough; traditionalists favor Chinese coins with a hole in the middle, but any pocket change does the same work. Keep paper and pen at hand as well; the lines are recorded as they are cast.
The toss and its values
Shake the three coins in your palm and let them fall. Each heads counts as 3, each tails as 2; the three coins add up to 6, 7, 8, or 9. A 7 is a stable yang line, drawn solid; an 8 is a stable yin line, drawn broken in the middle. A 9 is changing yang and a 6 is changing yin; these are recorded with a small mark beside them. You repeat the toss six times, and the hexagram is built from the bottom up: the first toss is the lowest line, the sixth the topmost.
Finding the sign
Once the six lines are complete, you look at which trigrams the lower three and upper three lines form, and find the hexagram's number in the table. If there are changing lines, you flip them and note the second hexagram as well. The order of reading is settled: first the judgment of the first sign, then the commentaries on the changing lines themselves, and last the direction described by the second sign.
Yarrow Stalks: The Classical Procedure
The book's original method is a counting ritual performed with fifty yarrow stalks. One stalk is set aside and never used; the remaining forty-nine are divided in two, counted off in groups of four, and the remainders are gathered to one side. This dividing and counting is repeated three times for every line; a six-line sign means eighteen counts, and even in practiced hands the whole cast approaches half an hour.
This slowness is not a flaw; it is the method itself. What the coins finish in a minute becomes, with the stalks, a session of contemplation; the question steeps in the mind throughout the counting. Most consulters choose the stalks for weighty decisions and the coins for everyday questions.
The Difference Between the Two Methods
Both methods produce the same four kinds of line, but with different odds. In the coin method, changing yang and changing yin arrive with equal probability; in the stalk method, changing yang is three times as likely as changing yin. This gives the classical procedure's signs a texture of their own: in casts made with stalks, transformation more often begins from the yang lines. To the question of which method is "more correct," tradition gives a plain answer: the book looks not at the method, but at the seriousness of the one who asks.
| Feature | Three Coins | Yarrow Stalks |
|---|---|---|
| Duration | A few minutes | More than twenty minutes |
| Learning | Easy; one toss rule | Takes effort; a multi-step count |
| Changing-line odds | 6 and 9 equal (1/8 each) | Changing yang frequent, changing yin rare |
| Atmosphere | Practical, everyday consultation | Ritual, weighty thresholds |
| Materials | Three coins | Fifty stalks, a broad surface |
Reading Changing Lines in Practice
The changing line is the personal part of the cast: the general judgment of a hexagram is the same for everyone, but which lines change belongs to that cast alone. A single changing line is the clearest case; the first sign's judgment describes the situation, that line's commentary the attitude to take, and the second sign the direction of travel. When several lines change, tradition gives the weight back to the judgments and reads the line commentaries from the bottom upward; in casts where five or six lines change at once, the second hexagram takes over the reading almost entirely, because the situation is already in the middle of its transformation.
A cast with no changing line at all is also an answer: the situation is still, the sign's judgment is read on its own, and the tone is understood as "wait and watch."
Keeping a Casting Journal
The shared habit of those who build a lasting relationship with the I Ching is the journal: date, question, the sign received, the changing lines, and a short note. Looking back months later, two things become visible: which signs repeated in which seasons of life, and how that day's reading found its echo in what actually happened. The book's real teaching begins in that backward glance; the signs grow familiar not through memorization but through lived examples.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which coins should be used?
Any three coins of the same kind. What matters is not the coin but deciding at the start which face counts as 2 and which as 3, and never changing it mid-cast.
Can someone else make the cast for me?
Tradition prefers that the one asking makes the toss; the cast is part of the bond between the question and the questioner. Having someone experienced interpret the reading is a separate matter, and common.
How many times a day can you consult?
There is no rule of number, but there is a rule of manner: each question is cast once, and a question is never repeated because its answer displeased. Consulting rarely and at the right moment keeps the readings worth something.
You can look up the meaning of the sign your cast has built in our guide to the 64 hexagrams, and enter the world of the book through our I Ching page. And if you have no coins at hand, Faltastik I Ching reading makes the cast for you and interprets the sign together with your question.
