Identifying Your Hexagrams

Identifying Your Hexagrams: Primary and Resulting

You’ve successfully tossed the coins and recorded the six lines of your primary hexagram, noting any changing lines. Great! Now, how do you figure out which hexagram it is out of the 64 possibilities, and what happens with those changing lines?

1. Identifying Your Primary Hexagram Number

Your primary hexagram is the six-line figure you initially drew. To find its number (1-64), you need to identify its lower and upper trigrams:

• Isolate the Trigrams: Look at the bottom three lines (Lines 1-3) – this is your lower trigram. Look at the top three lines (Lines 4-6) – this is your upper trigram. Ignore any ‘X’ or ‘O’ marks for this step; just focus on whether the lines are solid (Yang) or broken (Yin).

• Recognize the Trigrams: Match the patterns of your lower and upper trigrams to the eight Bagua symbols you learned earlier (Heaven ☰, Earth ☷, Thunder ☳, Wind ☴, Water ☵, Fire ☲, Mountain ☶, Lake ☱).

• Look Up the Number: Use an I Ching reference chart or book. These charts typically arrange the hexagrams based on their lower and upper trigrams. Find the row/column corresponding to your lower and upper trigrams to locate the specific hexagram number and its name.

Example: Let’s use the example from the previous article where the tosses yielded 8, 7, 6, 9, 8, 7. The drawn hexagram was:

Line 6:  ———   (Upper Trigram: Lines 4-6)
Line 5:  — —
Line 4:  ———   <-- Ignore the 'X' for now

Line 3:  — —   (Lower Trigram: Lines 1-3)
Line 2:  ———   <-- Ignore the 'O' for now
Line 1:  — —

Lower Trigram (Lines 1-3): Broken, Solid, Broken (— —, ———, — —). This is ☵ Water (Kǎn). Upper Trigram (Lines 4-6): Solid, Broken, Solid (———, — —, ———). This is ☲ Fire (Lí).

Looking up Water (Kǎn) as the lower trigram and Fire (Lí) as the upper trigram on a standard I Ching chart reveals this is Hexagram 64: Wèi Jì (未濟) - Before Completion.

2. Determining the Resulting Hexagram (If Changing Lines Exist)

Changing lines (totals 6 or 9 from your coin toss) indicate a state of flux. They point towards a potential transformation or a future state. To see this potential outcome, you determine the resulting hexagram:

• Identify Changing Lines: Locate any lines marked with ‘X’ or ‘O’ in your primary hexagram.

• Flip Them: Change each changing line into its opposite:

  • A changing Yang line (Solid, ———, total 9) becomes a stable Yin line (Broken, — —).
  • A changing Yin line (Broken, — —, total 6) becomes a stable Yang line (Solid, ———).

• Keep Stable Lines: Leave all stable lines (totals 7 or 8) as they are.

• Form the New Hexagram: The new six-line figure you create is the resulting hexagram. Identify its number using the same trigram lookup method as before.

Example (Continuing from Hexagram 64): Our primary hexagram had changing lines at Line 3 (Total 6, Old Yin) and Line 4 (Total 9, Old Yang).

Primary Hexagram (64: Before Completion)

Line 6:  ———
Line 5:  — —
Line 4:  —X—  (Changing Yang)
Line 3:  —O—  (Changing Yin)
Line 2:  ———
Line 1:  — —

Flip the changing lines:

• Line 4 (Yang X) becomes Yin (— —).
• Line 3 (Yin O) becomes Yang (———).

Resulting Hexagram

Line 6:  ———   (Upper Trigram: Lines 4-6)
Line 5:  — —
Line 4:  — —   <-- Flipped from Yang

Line 3:  ———   <-- Flipped from Yin (Lower Trigram: Lines 1-3)
Line 2:  ———
Line 1:  — —

Lower Trigram (Lines 1-3): Broken, Solid, Solid (— —, ———, ———). This is ☱ Lake (Duì). Upper Trigram (Lines 4-6): Broken, Broken, Solid (— —, — —, ———). This is ☳ Thunder (Zhèn).

Looking up Lake (Duì) below and Thunder (Zhèn) above gives Hexagram 17: Suí (隨) - Following.

So, in this example reading, the primary situation is Hexagram 64 (Before Completion), and the potential outcome or direction it’s moving towards is Hexagram 17 (Following).

What’s Next?

You now know how to identify your primary hexagram number and, if necessary, the resulting hexagram number. The final step is to actually read and reflect on the texts associated with these hexagrams and your specific changing lines to understand the guidance offered by the I Ching.

(The next article will focus on finding and understanding the relevant I Ching texts for your reading.)