Turning Lines中文

I Ching · three-coin method

Six tosses, one hexagram,
no model required.

The three-coin method is the most common way to cast an I Ching reading without yarrow stalks. It produces the same 64 possible hexagrams as any other method, and every line value it generates is one of four numbers: 6, 7, 8, or 9. This page explains the convention we use at Turning Lines, why each value means what it means, and how to keep your tosses consistent.

The convention we use (and why)

We assign heads = 3 and tails = 2. Each toss sums three coins, so the result is always 6, 7, 8, or 9. The simplest convention is the only one this site uses, so the same casting will always produce the same reading here. Other sites and books reverse the assignment (heads = 2, tails = 3) — both work, but you must pick one and stay with it. The numbers themselves don't change; only which face you call "three" does.

Coin sums and what they mean. Values 6 and 9 are changing lines; 7 and 8 are stable.

Coin sums and what they mean. Values 6 and 9 are changing lines; 7 and 8 are stable.
Summeaningsummotion
6 (2 + 2 + 2, three tails)Old yinYin lineChanges to yang — moving line
7 (3 + 2 + 2, one head + two tails)Young yangYang lineStable — not moving
8 (3 + 3 + 2, two heads + one tail)Young yinYin lineStable — not moving
9 (3 + 3 + 3, three heads)Old yangYang lineChanges to yin — moving line

Lines 1 to 6, from bottom to top. Two changing lines (line 2 and line 5) are marked with a cinnabar dot and the word "changing."

Lines 1 to 6, from bottom to top. Two changing lines (line 2 and line 5) are marked with a cinnabar dot and the word "changing."

The six steps, in order

  1. Step 1

    Hold the question.

    Before you pick up the first coin, hold the question you actually carry tonight. A vague question produces a vague mirror. A specific question produces something you can meet.

  2. Step 2

    Pick up three coins.

    Any three identical coins work. We render them as virtual coins on the workbench, but real coins — tossed onto a flat surface — are the original method.

  3. Step 3

    Toss for line 1, the bottom line.

    The first toss becomes line 1. In I Ching layout, line 1 is the bottom of the hexagram. Always start at the bottom.

  4. Step 4

    Count: heads = 3, tails = 2.

    Sum the three coins. Heads is three. Tails is two. Note the sum (6, 7, 8, or 9) — that is the value of line 1.

  5. Step 5

    Repeat five more times.

    Toss again for line 2, then line 3, line 4, line 5, and finally line 6. Six lines, six tosses, six sums.

  6. Step 6

    Read the hexagram.

    Stack the six lines from bottom (line 1) to top (line 6). The bottom-to-top pattern resolves to one of the 64 hexagrams. Any 6 or 9 line is a changing line, and it will flip in the relating hexagram.

How the figure is described

Each line in the figure is rendered both with a clear visual line (solid bar for yang, two short bars with a gap for yin) and with a written label that screen readers can announce. Changing lines carry an extra text marker — "changing" — in addition to the small cinnabar dot, so the information is never carried by color alone. The full text of every guide below is also published in this article, so anyone reading without a screen can copy and paste it.

What if I learned the opposite convention?

Some teachers use heads = 2 and tails = 3. The site you are reading does not. Both conventions produce the same six possible sums (6, 7, 8, 9), but they swap which sum is the "all heads" result. Pick one convention and stay with it for every reading you do on this site, or use the Enter tab to type in the six line values you already have. The Enter tab accepts the same four sums (6, 7, 8, 9) regardless of which convention you used to generate them — the convention only affects the coin-by-coin mapping, not the line values themselves.

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