How to read a hexagram

Six rules

1. 1
   Position

   Correct position

   Odd positions (1, 3, 5) are yang positions, even ones (2, 4, 6) yin. A yang line in a yang position or a yin line in a yin position is 'correct' and usually steadier.

2. 2
   Centre

   Central lines

   Lines 2 and 5 sit at the centre of the lower and upper trigrams and are generally favourable. Line 5 is the ruler's place; line 2 the minister's, or the inner centre.

3. 3
   Correspondence

   Resonance

   Lines 1 and 4, 2 and 5, 3 and 6 correspond. One yin and one yang 'resonate' and support each other; two of the same kind do not.

4. 4
   Adjacency

   Supporting and riding

   Neighbouring lines interact. A yin line below a yang line 'supports' it; a yin line above a yang line 'rides' it, which often brings difficulty.

5. 5
   Change

   Changing lines

   When casting by numbers, 9 (old yang) and 6 (old yin) change into their opposites; 7 (young yang) and 8 (young yin) do not. Changing lines show what is moving in a situation.

6. 6
   Relations

   Related hexagrams

   The nuclear hexagram (lines 2–4 and 3–5) shows internal dynamics; the opposite (all lines reversed) shows the shadow and blind spots; the inverse (turned upside down) shows the counterpart's view.

Zhu Xi's table of changing lines

The number of changing lines determines which text carries the main weight. This, from Zhu Xi's Introduction to the Study of the Changes, is the most widely followed traditional convention; our consultation engine uses it to mark the principal text.

0	Read the judgment of the primary hexagram.
1	Read that changing line of the primary hexagram.
2	Read both changing lines of the primary hexagram; the upper one is principal.
3	Read the judgments of the primary and resulting hexagrams: the primary is the present situation, the resulting its development.
4	Read the two unchanging lines of the resulting hexagram; the lower one is principal.
5	Read the one unchanging line of the resulting hexagram.
6	For hexagrams 1 and 2 read 'all lines changing'; otherwise read the judgment of the resulting hexagram.

The Ten Wings

1. Tuan commentary (two parts): explains the name and judgment
2. Image commentary (two parts): the Great Image on each hexagram, the Small Images on each line
3. Great Commentary, Xici (two parts): the philosophy of the Changes—the most important
4. Wenyan: on hexagrams 1 and 2
5. Shuogua: symbols and directions of the trigrams
6. Xugua: the logic of the sequence
7. Zagua: hexagrams contrasted in pairs

Recurring formulas

元亨利贞 yuan heng li zhen	Traditionally the 'four virtues': origination, success, benefit, steadfastness (Wenyan). Many modern scholars (Gao Heng, Shaughnessy) read 'grand offering; favourable to divine'—zhen originally meant to divine.
吉 / 凶	Good fortune / misfortune.
悔 / 吝	Regret (can be remedied) / humiliation or distress (stuck). Both milder than misfortune.
无咎	No blame: an error avoided or repaired.
厉	Danger, severity: be alert.
孚	Sincerity, trust; some scholars read it as 俘, 'captives', on the basis of oracle-bone and bronze usage—a point of debate.
利涉大川	Favourable to cross the great river: suitable for a major, risky undertaking.
利见大人	Favourable to see the great person: seek help or judgement from someone of virtue and position.
君子 / 小人	Originally social rank, later chiefly moral character: the noble person and the petty person.
九 / 六	Nine and six in line titles: yang and yin lines, from old yang and old yin in casting.

Two traditions: images-and-numbers and meaning-and-principle

The xiangshu (images and numbers) school stresses correlations between figures and numbers: Han scholars such as Meng Xi, Jing Fang and Yu Fan used calendrical and correlative methods; in the Song, Shao Yong derived cosmology from his Earlier Heaven diagrams. The yili (meaning and principle) school stresses the sense of the text: Wang Bi in the third century 'swept away the images to clarify principle', and Cheng Yi in the eleventh read the book through Confucian ethics. Zhu Xi combined both, holding that the Changes was originally a book of divination whose method and meaning must both be understood. Our method does the same: the structure of images organises the question; the perspective of meaning guides reflection.