How to Toss Coins to Receive Your I Ching Hexagram

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The traditional method for consulting the I Ching is by throwing three coins six times or by dividing and counting yarrow stalks to arrive at an answer to a question. Allowing chance to provide an appropriate response to what is on your mind is a phenomenon that Carl Jung called synchronicity.

How to Toss Coins to Receive Your I Ching Hexagram

Choose 3 coins. They should all be the same size with a distinctly different front and back. The coins shown here are Chinese coins. You can use any kind of coin. Choose which side of the coin you designate as Yang and which as Yin. Yang is given a value of 3 and Yin the value of 2. Most instructions I have read say to designate heads to Yang and tails to Yin. I have also read where the opposite designation is prescribed. So choose what makes sense to you and then stick with that method.

Toss the 3 coins simultaneously letting them fall with no effort to control the outcome. Toss your 3 coins 6 successive times writing your answer from the bottom up.

The possibilities of receiving in each toss are values of 6, 7, 8 or 9. The even numbers 6 and 8 are Yin lines and odd numbers, 7 and 9 are Yang lines. If you receive all Yin, that equals 6 and is called a moving line, which changes to its opposite of Yang. If your coins equal the value of 9, that is a moving Yang line, changing to a Yin line. If you get a 6 or 9 moving line, make a mark on the line when you write it down (see examples below) so that when you go to look up what hexagram you received, you will know that the line or lines that changed into its opposite, now give you 2 hexagrams.

3 Heads (Yang) = 9 (changing)

3 Tails (Yin) = 6 (changing)

2 tails, one head (Yang) = 7 (not changing) 2 heads, one tail (Yin) = 8 (not changing)

Here is an example of a coin toss with changing lines. Hexagram 14 changes into hexagram 32 with the first and last Yang lines changing to Yin, thereby creating the second hexagram.