Hi everyone I’m very new to this and I used the coin method to ask if I’ll be dating my crush soon and got hexagram 46 changing to 41
And I’m very confused 😕 is this a yes? Or is it “it depends” I have a hard time understanding hexagram 41 because its decrease so idk a decrease in what?
Due to my life circumstances, I have not been able to meet a lot of people and have spent my life alone and have always had very few friends for the most part.
I have a big project in 2 weeks, the biggest of my life. I have to show a bunch of art pieces in a room for a few days at my school. I've made a few posts about that subject on this sub. I don't really feel stressed for the actual work even though I'm a bit late. What stresses me the most is the idea of no one coming. Due to the circumstances I talked earlier, I don't have a lot of people to invite, dans the date is quite unfortunate as the few people I invite might not even be able to come.
Like the idea of bringing to eat and drink to people and it remaining nearly untouched for the whole evening makes me feel miserable. I feel shameful and I'm afraid of being pitied by the few who come, seeing an empty room with me waiting inside. I'm sorry for the sad post but it is truly what I feel.
I saw the list of my girlfriend (she also has her show a few days after mine) and she has dozens and dozens and dozens of people to invite, like I don't think I've known that many people in my whole life. I'm not jealous it just made me realize that that I have a particularly small list (around 10 people) for a show like that. Even other people have so much people coming !
My goal for this project was to make for the first time a project I'm proud of. Usually when there are things like that I don't invite anyone cause I usually don't feel proud about my work, but this time I really want people to see it. So the perspective of no one coming makes me feel bad.
So I asked the I-Ching how to deal with that feeling. It gave me 15.1.3
So I guess I need to stay humble and not too attached to the results of my work, and to experience the results of my circumstances with humility ? That's how I feel it's telling me but honestly i'm not sure. If you have other interpretations that would be cool ! Thanks !
Hello, hope you all are doing well!
Some weeks ago I made a I ching reading for my love life in this year. And I didn't understand its meaning. I let it rest for a week, waiting for some meaning to emerge, but I still don't understand.
I asked "How my romantic-affective-sexual life will be in this year?"
So I got 55.2.5 (Abundance changing to Resolution).
I don't get what is the meaning of abundance, much less the changing lines.
Line 2 seems the classic "do your thing humbly and everything is going to be alright" and line 5 seems like "be humble and someone will help you".
But I'm not sure with this, I do not have a CERTAIN/RIGHT feeling about this reading.
And 43. Resoluteness/resolution. Resolution of WHAT I'm single 😭😭😭.
And for the context: I've been single since my breakup a year ago, and since then my love life feels desertic.
Do you feel/think anything about this reading? I would be really grateful if somebody can shed some light on this. Thanks!!!
Sorry for the dark subject, TW: pregnancy/ child loss
I lost my son at full term, 38 weeks, some months ago. We have no real answers, and although my partner and I are surprisingly doing well despite the obvious grief, this question of why this happened to us continues to come up to me sometimes. Specifically the fear of will this happen again, should we know something? Many stillbirths have no medical answers and it’s relatively unknown why many of them happen. It seems we are in this category.
For years I used to consult the I Ching a few times a year to check in with myself, and I’ve enjoyed reading tarot for others. I have always found the I Ching to present clear answers to me. During the pregnancy I felt very strongly that I shouldn’t consult them and focus instead on the pregnancy. For the first time in a year I’ve been able to ask the I Ching a question: and it was “why did this happen?”. I got Hex 60 (limitations) unchanging.
I would love some ideas on what it could mean. I’m having lots of different interpretations and struggling to see a clear answer.
On one hand there is a literal interpretation of needing limits: was there something measurable and definable that was in excess here, physiologically?
Then I wondered is the I Ching telling me there are limits to our knowledge and the things we should know. Have I reached my limit of what I can physically understand of this situation. I have found more comfort in developing a psychological/ spiritual “coming to terms” with it and perhaps there is a limit on the comfort I can be provided with a logical answer. After all what would it change? Was this experience just an encounter with one of life’s many limits? The ones we are constantly faced with that define what it is to be human? That without these limits life would be boundless.
Or perhaps our son wanted to be boundless. That to enter this life means to accept a contract that has written into it at some point an inevitable death, the ultimate limit. Or perhaps there were unknown limitations of his body, something we may not ever see or know.
Line 2 speaks of hesitation and I cannot help but feel perhaps there was a hesistation in his joining us.
I know it must seem I am looking for something where maybe there is not much to be found. But regardless I am here so please do share if you have thoughts!
Edit: more thoughts
Reading how the Confucian commentary observes: "We see a cheerful attitude directing the course amidst peril." And I thought wow how accurate a description of how I feel my partner and I have handled this entire situation from the start.
Some years ago (quite many) I was having a difficult time with a person I was close to, but had recently done quite a few seriously unethical things to me, causing much damage.
They had also done similar to others. They were riding high, and being extremely arrogant and pompous.
I became so despondent and desperate that I consulted the I Ching oracle for insight.
I received 2 hexagrams -- 56.6 and 50.4 -- both indicating that this individual would receive due karma, being made to "blush with shame" and to "laugh at their own cleverness, and then weep."
Needless to say, the opposite occurred:
I, who had conducted myself virtuously and fairly, underwent a series of misfortunes and setbacks. Another victim, who was a decent person, got incurable cancer.
The arrogant person continued on in excellent health; grew richer; thrived financially, socially, and materially; and continues on this way to this day.
⭐QUESTION ❓ How are we to feel about oracles that ought to have come true, but didn't? How can the I Ching be trusted?
I recently posted a response pushing back on the claim that “Chinese divination is basically statistics,” and it sparked more debate than I expected.
First, I want to correct something I said before—and apologize for not phrasing it carefully enough.
I previously said that divination is not statistics. That was too absolute.
Many traditional Chinese divination systems do involve ways of thinking that resemble classification, induction, conditional reasoning, and the accumulation of experience. In that sense, there is some real overlap with statistical thinking.
But these systems originated and developed long before statistics existed as a modern academic discipline.
I graduated from the University of Washington with a major in Quantitative Economics and a minor in Informatics. My coursework involved a fair amount of statistics, econometrics, mathematics, and economics.
Anyone who has studied economics, finance, data science, or a related field will understand that academic disciplines are rarely isolated from one another. They constantly borrow methods, concepts, and tools from neighboring fields.
At the same time, I’m currently studying Da Liu Ren 大六壬 under a teacher. Da Liu Ren is one of the ancient Chinese “Three Styles” of divination and one of the oldest and most structurally complete systems that has survived into the present.
So I’m not approaching this as someone trying to use science to “debunk superstition.” Nor am I arguing that traditional knowledge is somehow superior to modern science.
It is precisely because I have spent time studying both that I have come to believe this:
Statistics and traditional divination do share certain features. But saying that divination is simply a form of statistics forces two fundamentally different systems of knowledge into the same category.
Let’s look at the question from both sides.
First, statistics.
Suppose someone asks me a very simple question:
>
From a statistical perspective, the first step would not even be to make a prediction.
The first step would be to define the variables.
What exactly counts as “finding a job”?
Does receiving an offer count, or only formally starting the job? Does part-time work count? What about self-employment? What is the time frame—three months, six months, or one year?
In statistics, if the dependent variable has not been clearly defined, then any discussion about predictive accuracy is almost meaningless.
The next step would be to define the population and the sample.
Are we studying American college graduates in 2026, or Chinese college graduates? People of all ages, or only recent graduates? Computer science majors, or workers across every industry?
When the population changes, the probability changes.
Then we have another important concept: the base rate.
Suppose 80% of people in a certain group will find a job within the next year.
Even if I know absolutely nothing, I could tell every person:
>
I might still be correct 80% of the time.
So from a statistical perspective, saying “I predicted correctly many times” does not, by itself, prove that a predictive method is useful.
The real question is:
Does this method perform better than a simple baseline prediction?
In other words, does it have any incremental predictive power?
This already reveals an important difference between modern statistics and traditional Chinese divination.
Now let’s look at Da Liu Ren.
When Da Liu Ren is used to judge a question about employment, it does not begin by collecting data from ten thousand people with the same age, education, location, and career background, and then calculating their average probability of employment.
Instead, it constructs a system involving the Heaven and Earth Plates, the Four Lessons, the Three Transmissions, and the Twelve Heavenly Generals. The practitioner then selects the relevant symbolic category for the question and interprets its strength, weakness, interactions, transformations, timing, and relationship to the overall structure of the chart.
In other words, it first constructs a system of symbols, correspondences, and analogies. The judgment is then made within the internal logic of that system.
That is not the same inferential path as drawing a sample from a population and using data to estimate a probability distribution.
Some people may respond:
>
This is exactly where the distinction matters most.
Empirical induction is not the same thing as modern statistics.
Human beings were identifying patterns from experience thousands of years before statistics became a formal discipline.
A farmer reading clouds to anticipate the weather is using empirical knowledge.
Ancient Chinese physicians accumulating medical case records were using empirical knowledge.
People observing the relationship between seasonal cycles and crop growth were also using empirical knowledge.
But that does not mean they were all practicing modern statistics.
What modern statistics adds is a formal framework for quantifying, controlling, comparing, and testing the patterns that people believe they have observed.
There is also a more direct problem.
Suppose we insist that Da Liu Ren was created from thousands of years of accumulated historical cases.
That immediately creates a statistical question:
Can an ancient sample be used to predict modern people?
When someone in ancient China asked about their official career, they might have been asking about the imperial examination, receiving an appointment, entering the service of an official, or being promoted within the bureaucracy.
When someone today asks about their career, they may be asking about getting into a tech company, working in investment banking, starting a business, taking a civil-service exam, or becoming a freelancer.
On the surface, both questions concern “career.” Statistically, however, they may not represent the same outcome at all.
Over several centuries, political institutions, education systems, occupational structures, labor mobility, and economic conditions have all changed dramatically.
In modern statistics and machine learning, we might describe this as distribution shift: the process generating the data has changed.
You cannot train a model on Ming-dynasty imperial examination outcomes and then, without any new validation, use it to predict whether a university graduate in 2026 will get hired by Google.
So if someone insists that traditional divination is nothing more than ancient big-data analysis, that creates a serious problem:
If the data-generating process has changed so dramatically, why should the model still work?
And this is precisely why traditional divination does not explain itself in those terms.
Da Liu Ren speaks in terms of Heaven and Earth, yin and yang, the Five Phases, generation and control, the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, time, space, and symbolic correspondence.
You may accept that framework or reject it. But within its own intellectual tradition, it does not claim:
>
I therefore don’t think respecting traditional knowledge means forcing it into whatever modern terminology happens to sound most credible.
Statistics has its own language.
Traditional divination has its own language.
The two can be compared. They may be able to learn from one another. Some claims made by traditional divination could even be tested using modern statistical methods.
But these are two very different statements:
>
and
>
The first is reasonable.
The second requires much more justification.
I’ll end with a line from Chapter 71 of the Tao Te Ching:
>
This is not a call to stop asking questions. It is a reminder that genuine inquiry often begins by recognizing the boundaries of our knowledge.
Ancient knowledge does not need to be renamed “modern statistics” in order to have value.
Modern statistics does not need to explain every traditional system of divination.
To see where the two are similar, while still understanding that they are built on different foundations, is a more serious form of intellectual respect.
Do not force ancient ideas into modern terminology, and do not use ancient claims as a substitute for modern evidence.
(My post is originally written in Chinese, so there may be some translation mistake here)
Heyo
I am super new to iching and I am not sure if I did it in the right way. Really appreciate to get some advice from you guys!!
Or if it is ok to ask iching for a prediction
Asked for a prediction type of question if a friend will reach out to me again.. (we had a fallout after an argument, sadly im not in a position to be proactive in this situation)
Instead of using coins, I do have an oracle deck with each card representing 1 gua. From what I understand, one need 1 gua, and then another one for the changing lines.
So I pulled 2 cards. (would that be correct?)
And by the looks of it, the first card was gua 54 (gui mei) and the second card 26 (da chu)
I think gua 54 reflects on my current situation. And the card 26, I am not sure. So I assume this is the "answer" to the prediction question I asked about?
So far... Im still unsure if I am on the right track
but then looking in the lines that are different I assume those would be the changing lines ( 3 , 4 and 6) not sure how to interpret them. Would that represent advice. or represent the prediction of how it will happen/what will cause the shift?
In addition, I look at gua 26, it looks like it is supposed to be an auspicious one. But it is in the theme of delay turning into a change. Would it be understood as a reconnection; assuming there to be a delay first?
Thank you for help!!
I have been struggling with deciding whether or not to have a child. I want a child, but I often fear that I cannot handle parenthood.
A few weeks ago I asked the oracle, "Will the challenges of motherhood be worth the reward?" I got #42, Increasing. I interpreted this to mean that yes, not only will it be worth it, but good fortune will come with parenthood.
A few days ago I asked the oracle, "Now that I have found myself, how can I make sure I don't lose myself, especially if I become a mother?" I got #61 Inner Truth. I interpreted this to mean that I need to trust myself and be sincere in my actions - I.e., trust my desire for parenthood over my fears.
But what blew me away was my moving line #2. This moved #61 to... #42, the same gua from my earlier divination about motherhood. And the commentary on this line is about a mother crane calling to her babies.
I was awestruck. I don't believe in coincidences being purely coincidental, especially not for something with this level of life-changing potential. The oracle is guiding me with a clarity I have never experienced before.
I am wishing everyone good fortune and meaningful insight in your divinations ❤️
I'm curious to learn about the variety of ways others use the I Ching for guidance. I personally use it when I am reflecting on myself, my actions, and how I approach different situations, but I'm curious what others on this subreddit use it for.
Do you mainly use it for self-reflection, relationships, major life decisions, or something else? And has your way of practice changed over time?
I recently took a trip to a place I really loved and could see myself living. I asked the I Ching “What if I moved to X, as opposed to staying in Y?” and got 35.6 (Progress/Advancement) into 16 (Contentment/Enthusiasm). The line I got with 35 makes me think moving might be a risky idea, but I feel like the rest of the hexagrams are saying I should move? Any insight would be appreciated :)
I have practiced the iching since 2017. I feel I have a fairly good handle on it and rarely ask question regarding something like this but have decided based on my question to get some thoughts. I got 49(abolish the old) with changing lines 1 and 5, transitioning to “preponderance of the small” or “attention to detail”. I feel like the relationship has been transformative and already a very large departure from my past experiences. We have exchanged very few(not none) images of one another and talked for literally hundreds of hours in the last six months. We exchange thoughtful gifts, and it has been simply cosmic in many ways. We have plans to meet for the first time irl in September. We recently had a bit of an upset and for reasons that they have requested space as they are going through a lot, we haven’t talked for the second time for quite a few days. I felt a lot of different feelings when this happened. In that time I have been able v to see ways that my own triggers from post trauma were informing my feelings and depart from the negativity the situation was giving rise to. I’m the one hand I feel that the idea of transformative love has been prevalent in this relationship, and the idea of retreat as to my condition acknowledges the ability to practice independence and trust, where those weren’t present in my previous relationship. I would love to see any thoughts on this reading and what folks might think.
I did some analysis of the available I Ching translations (in English) that I know of, and I was amazed at how few of them actually include all of the content in the source text (which honestly isn't that long), namely the Ten Wings commentaries which are an official part of the text called I Ching which combines the Zhouyi oracle text and the Ten Wings.
Here are the complete translations that include all of the Ten Wings in untruncated and unparaphrased form:
That's it, unless I've missed some publication.
Here are some honorable mentions:
What to do with this information? I'm not entirely sure, but I wanted to share this. If you want to mention more publications, please do!
P.S. The Ten Wings are as follows:
Greetings, all, I'm a newcomer here. I have been studying the i ching and using it on my own for a few years and it has influenced my way of thinking about life quite a bit. I'm now at a sort of plateau where I struggle to know how to more deeply understand my readings. At first, I would simply read the text on various i ching websites; eventually I got some books of translations. But sometimes the symbols and their system is obscure to me and I feel like I am still at a "beginner layer" of understanding their meaning, and I would like to progress. What would you suggest?
Here is an example of a reading I am getting. I have received 51.3 > 55 three times in the past week or so! The situation surrounding the readings is essentially that I am considering making some huge changes in my life including maybe changing jobs or moving countries or both, because my current work and life, while really fulfilling, is increasingly unstable for me due to my pay being so low that I can't afford housing in the area where I work, so I house myself by working as a pet sitter. I'm currently traveling in another country where my expenses are lower, and considering staying here, or otherwise just reconfiguring life from the ground up.
My questions to the i ching have usually been simply "can you tell me about what is happening right now" or "will any new elements come into play in this situation?" The reason I ask about the new elements is that I intuitively think I might get some alternative offers or opportunities over the summer that might help me change things -- I'm hopeful that I will. Also, my travels have at times themselves been "shocking" -- I hoped that this summer would feel more stable than my regular working life, such that I could return to regular life and be satisfied with it, but I've had a handful of surprise changes here too, leading to anxiety (and a revelation of how much fear and anxiety I carry with me all the time), and deeper consideration of what it means for me to live well and be responsible to myself.
I am deeply grateful for any insight!
Hello
Yes, so
I’ve been in a long lasting hard situation with my girlfriend, because of this and that.
I do have other questions/issues on my table, that I need to sort up, and whatever path is going to be taken over all in life, those seriously needs to be prioritised.
I’ve been through the most intense internal journey for quite a while now, and It’s at a point where I’m feeling pretty lost and confused, in all honesty, and I really, seriously, really need to build from the bottom up within myself.
My partner is very supportive of me in general. But, I’m still having serious doubts, about whether it’s actually possible for us to reconcile with our visions, hopes, wishes and dreams for life. And we have had some issues, one could say lightly, between us.
I’m in a huge transformational process. I seriously need to let go, of many things, past and present, in different ways. But it’s got to do a lot with trying to allow what’s “true”, to shine through. But, I also feel that I get run over, if I don’t take my stance/have my say, in things. Hence, some trickieness also about the “letting go”.
I asked the I Ching simply.. About my girlfriend now, after the last turn of events, and got the answer 60.1 - 29
Tricky one… Not sure how to interpret, but feels a bit dire..
If anyone could have a take, I’m very much interested in that, as of now. Could really use a bit of perspective here..✨
Thanks a lot, and all the best
Love
The question I asked was related to a person I like. They got to know I liked them a few months back and things just got weird and though we have stayed in touch, just very superficially. I asked how i should go about reaching out to her
Hi all! I’m new to this subreddit and community in general. I got an I-ching book second hand years ago (the everyday I-ching) and have thrown my coins for about five years now. I’ve never read another book or delved much deeper but treat my coins with lots of respect and truly am always amazed with the specificity of the answers I get. I’ve noticed over the years that I get “frequent flyer” hexagrams. Is this anyone else’s experience? Is it subjective? Is it a game of statistics? (When I have a sceptical moment this is what I wonder, but then the answer is always so poignant)