I-Ching

Taoism is a philosophy that’s profound yet subtle, confusing yet simple. Rather than seeing contradictions, Taoists recognize the unity in all opposing forces that make up our everyday lives. They call this force the Tao.

The Tao, to explain it crudely, is a transcendent and fundamental force above even the perfect balance of yin and yang, dark and light. (Any attempt to describe it is inherently un-Taoist, i.e. The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. — Tao Te Ching, Chapter 1, translated by Wing-tsit Chan ).

This ultimate force is inherent in all things and sits at the center of an ever-rotating wheel representing constant change.

A well known symbol of Taoism is the combination of yin and yang (☯). The light, expansive energy of yang and heaven dances around the dark, grounded energy of yin and earth, with each side containing some of the other.

What are trigrams?

Yin and yang also have different representations: as a broken line (⚋) and as a solid line (⚊) respectively. There are eight combinations of of these two symbols when grouped in threes (2^3=8). These line combinations are called trigrams and represent the elements of the ancient Taoists: heaven, earth, fire, water, lake, mountain, thunder, and wind.

There are 64 distinct pairs of these 8 trigrams (8x8=64). These six-lined symbols are called hexagrams and their meanings are broken down line-by-line in the ancient Chinese text titled the I-Ching.

The I-Ching is an ancient text from China that is highly regarded among esoteric Taoists. It contains line-by-line divinatory explanations of trigram line symbols paired into 64 hexagrams.

Millenia ago, oracles interpreted these hexagrams in the patterns of scattered reeds. Later on a simpler method of divination became popular — one using 3 coins.

Flipping three coins to read the I-Ching is much more straightforward than the ancient way of discerning a hexagram in a pile of sticks. The method is as follows:

• Flip three coins and add them up: 1 for heads and 0 for tails. This should produce a number from 0-3 each time.
• Do this six times, writing the totals in a column from bottom to top (the first line is on the bottom of the hexagram).
• Draw these lines next to their totals: (Line codes)
  0. yin
  1. yang
  2. yin changing*
  3. yang changing*
  * a changing line turns into its opposite to form a new hexagram.
• Now take any changing lines in this hexagram and draw their opposites next to them to form a new hexagram. If there are no changing lines, that's okay. If there are, also include the unchanging lines in this new hexagram.
• The number of changing lines in a reading determines which parts of the chapter to read:

  # changing lines	rule
  0	Consider the hexagram text (judgment) of the hexagram.
  1	Consider the line text of the changing line.
  2-3	Consider the line texts and also the hexagram text (judgment) of the resulting hexagram.
  4-6	Consider the hexagram texts (judgments) of the base and resulting hexagrams. (You could check out the line texts, however they will often be conflicting, and may not clearly relate to the situation.)

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