The I Ching three-coin method: 6, 7, 8 and 9 explained

The I Ching (易經, Book of Changes) is a set of sixty-four hexagrams, figures of six stacked lines, each line solid (yang) or broken (yin), with short classical texts attached to every figure and every line. To consult it you need a way to arrive at a hexagram. The oldest method uses yarrow stalks; the three-coin method (三錢法, also called 金錢卦) is quicker, and it is the one most people use today.

One throw, one line

Toss three coins together. Each coin has two faces: the plain side (背) counts 3 and the inscribed side (字) counts 2. Add them up and you get one of four numbers:

• 6: three inscribed faces. Old yin (老陰), a broken line that is moving.
• 7: one plain face. Young yang (少陽), a solid line at rest.
• 8: two plain faces. Young yin (少陰), a broken line at rest.
• 9: three plain faces. Old yang (老陽), a solid line that is moving.

Odd numbers are yang and even numbers yin; the extremes, 6 and 9, are lines on the point of turning into their opposite. With fair coins, 6 and 9 each come up one time in eight and 7 and 8 three times in eight, so most hexagrams have a moving line or two, and quite a few have none.

Which face counts as 3 is a convention, and books disagree. The site follows the reading in which the plain side counts 3, so a single plain face gives young yang.

Six throws, built from the bottom

Throw six times. The first throw gives the bottom line (初爻), the sixth the top. Lines are always numbered and read from the bottom up, the way a plant grows.

The finished figure is the primary hexagram (本卦). It divides into a lower and an upper trigram, each one of eight images: heaven, lake, fire, thunder, wind, water, mountain and earth. Together they name the hexagram; 山澤損, for example, is mountain over lake.

Moving lines and the changed hexagram

Turn every moving line into its opposite (old yang becomes yin, old yin becomes yang) and leave the resting lines as they are. The result is the changed hexagram (之卦, also 變卦). It describes the direction the situation is leaning, not a second, separate answer.

For example, the throws 7, 9, 8, 8, 6, 7, bottom to top, give 損 (Diminishing, no. 41), with moving lines in the second and fifth places. Turn those two over and you get 益 (Augmenting, no. 42).

If no line moves there is no changed hexagram. The situation is read as settled, and the primary hexagram speaks alone.

The order of reading

The site's readings follow the traditional order:

• The primary hexagram first: its judgment (卦辭), the commentary on the judgment (彖) and the image (象), the picture of the situation as a whole.
• Then each moving line, bottom to top: its line text (爻辭) and its short image. These are the parts of the situation in motion.
• Then the changed hexagram: where the movement is heading.

When several lines move, traditions differ on which one to stress, and later commentators proposed rules for choosing. The site doesn't choose for you; it shows every moving line. Beside the primary and changed hexagrams, the result page also shows the nuclear (互卦), inverse (綜卦) and opposite (錯卦) hexagrams, extra angles on the same figure.

The texts

Every passage appears in the classical Chinese original. In English it is shown alongside James Legge's translation of 1882, old-fashioned in places but careful and widely read. Where the two seem to pull apart, the Chinese is the authoritative text.

Asking well

A reading works best with an open question, "What should I understand about…" rather than "Will I…?". The book answers with an image and a direction, not a yes or a no. It is not a tool for medical, legal or financial decisions, and it does not announce anyone's fate.

Where the randomness comes from

On the I Ching page the server makes each toss with a cryptographic random source; the coins on screen only animate a result that has already been recorded. The six numbers, the moving lines and every hexagram are derived from those tosses by code. The AI then writes a reflection on the texts the code selected, and it cannot change a single line.