The I Ching (pronounced "ee-jing"), or Book of Changes, is a Chinese classic whose roots reach back more than three thousand years — older than the Parthenon, older than the Buddha. Kings of the Zhou dynasty consulted it before battles and harvests; Confucius studied it so devotedly that, legend says, he wore out the leather bindings of his copy three times.
At its heart are sixty-four hexagrams — figures of six stacked lines, each line either solid (yang) or broken (yin). Every hexagram is a portrait of a human situation: beginnings and obstructions, abundance and retreat, conflict and return. Together they form a map of how circumstances change — and how a wise person moves with that change rather than against it.
The I Ching does not claim to reveal a fixed future. Its counsel is closer to that of a wise elder: here is the nature of your moment; here is what acting well looks like within it. The text answers questions about the quality of the present, and leaves the choosing — and the future — to you. This is why we call every reading a mirror, never a prophecy.
For centuries, seekers have consulted the oracle by tossing three coins six times. Each toss yields one line; six tosses build the hexagram from the bottom up. Certain tosses produce "changing lines" — points of motion in your situation — which transform your hexagram into a second one, suggesting what your moment is becoming.
The I Ching entered Western thought through Richard Wilhelm's celebrated translation, published with a foreword by the psychologist Carl Jung, who saw in the oracle a profound instrument for exploring the unconscious. Since then its readers have included Bob Dylan, John Cage, Herman Hesse, and Philip K. Dick — who composed his novel The Man in the High Castle by consulting the coins.
The best way to understand the Book of Changes is to bring it a real question. Cast your first reading — free.