The I-Ching is employed in a form of divination known as cleromancy, which employs seemingly random numbers. Six digits between 6 and 9 are combined to form a hexagram, which may then be found in the text, which arranges hexagrams according to the King Wen sequence. The hexagrams have frequently acquired cosmological importance and have been compared to a variety of other ancient terms for change processes, such as yin and yang and Wu Xing.
This is still used as a type of divination by many masters today. Depending on the question posed, each hexagram will be interpreted differently in accordance with its associated trigram.
There are so many possible responses to this one! The I-Ching is the world’s oldest oracle; it is an art of Chinese wisdom; it is the accumulated wisdom of over 2,500 years of diviners and sages, going beyond the experience of unimaginably ancient oral traditions; it is the voice that has offered generations of people assistance and wise, genial guidance.
The I-Ching is a compilation of texts separated into 64 ‘chapters’. Each chapter will contain a fantastic mixture of imagery and instruction, philosophy, and poetry. These are the 64 hexagrams, which are just a collection of six broken or solid lines.
Usage
When consulting the I-Ching, a hexagram is constructed line by line based on the outcome of coin tosses or another procedure, such as sorting yarrow sticks or plucking marbles from a bag. Every translation will explain how this works – it’s incredibly simple. Thus, you are directed to a specific collection of texts – and, if one or more of your six lines is in the process of changing from solid to broken or vice versa, there are also line texts to read, as well as the second hexagram generated as a result of the lines shifting. A hexagram is more than a nice chapter title; it is also a very simple, elegant representation of how energy flows through a situation. I-Ching translates as ‘Book of Changes,’ and change is the book’s lone constant.
