Reading I-Ching - Stick Method

Using sticks to consult the I Ching

Many translators, perhaps in order to make the oriental more palatable to westerners, give directions for using coins to build the lines of a hexagram. I've read some opinions that using sticks is long and tedious and complicated, but ten minutes is plenty of time for me to complete the manipulations, and this method is simple in repetition.

Find a package of bamboo skewers at the grocery, select fifty of them, and cut off their points with wire cutters. Put an elastic band around them and keep them in a particular place - wherever you intend to be using them. Keep with them a small notebook and a pen for recording the lines, along with any translations you have. Always follow the same routine, once you are familiar with how to manipulate the sticks.

Using sticks demands the calming of the body and mind, and places your attention on the subject which concerns you. The more clearly you form your question, the more exact your answer is likely to be, since you are choosing where to dip into the stream of knowledge. Once you have begun to sort the sticks, your mind is free to discuss within itself various aspects of your inquiry, or to become totally receptive to the rote of the ritual sorting and dividing.

What To Do:

Sit in a chair or on the floor, whichever is more comfortable for you.

Starting at the bottom line of the next page in the notebook and working toward the top, write the date in the lower right corner. Keep the pen next to the notebook. Put the elastic next to them, and one of the sticks. You should have forty-nine of them in your hand. [Maybe the traditionsl fiftieth is in case one of them breaks.]

Place the bundle across your knees, left to right, and roll it with your palms, as if you were making a snake out of clay. [This shuffles and separates them.]

With your right hand, grab some of the pile, using a deliberate snatching motion. Pick up what's left with your left hand and put that pile next to your left thigh, parallel to it. Put the right hand bundle back down on your knees or next to your right thigh, reserving one stick. Put that stick between the little and ring fingers of your left hand and close your fingers to hold it.

Pick up the left hand pile with your right hand and pinch off groups of four sticks with your left forefinger and thumb. Put them back down next to your left thigh as you pull them out, until you have four or fewer. Add these to the stick in your left hand to make a bundle of two to five sticks. Pick up the right hand pile with your right hand, pinch off groups of four, and add the remainder to the same bundle.

Gather the sticks of the two piles into one bundle, sort of dropping it onto your leg (vertically) to even up the ends. Place the bundle across your knees and roll it with your right palm. Grab some of it with your right hand and move the rest to your left side. Put the right hand pile down across your knees [or to your right] except for one stick which you place between the ring and middle fingers of your left hand, to start a second bundle. Pinch off groups of four from the left pile and add the remainder to the stick between yourring and middle fingers. Pinch off groups of four from the right pile and add the remainder to the second bundle in your left hand.

Grab the sticks, stack them, roll them, divide them with your right hand, and place one stick from the right pile between the middle and first fingers of your left hand, to begin a third bundle. Add the remainders from the left and right piles.

Now count how many sticks you have in your left hand. [I usually count by twos.] Write this number on the lower left corner of the notebook page. You have completed the first (bottom) line.

Shuffle the forty-nine sticks, and find five more lines. Write each number above the previous one, so that the sixth number is at the top of the column. Draw next to each number its corresponding line type. [see below]

On the right side, just above the date and starting on the sixth line's line, draw the two hexagrams of the changing lines. First draw the basic lines and then redraw it using any changed lines. Look up their numbers using the chart of upper and lower trigrams. Read meanings.

Use as many translations as you can, because there are so many ways to look at any subject. [The more approaches you consider, the more guidance and understanding.] Since the original is in Chinese, many combinations of that symbology are valid. Your answer will depend upon your approach (angle), so you may need to consider highly conflicting ststaments carefully, to distinguish which person or event is relevant. Since change, by definition, varies with time, the interpretations can be looked at sequentially.

Lines:

If the number is thirteen, draw a solid line with a circle on it - a changing yang line (yang then yin) - the solid line changes to a broken line.

If the number is seventeen, draw two short lines - a yin line - a broken line.

If the number is twenty-one, draw a solid line - a yang line - a solid line.

If the number is twenty-five, draw two short lines with am X between them - a changing yin line (yin then yang) - the broken line changes to a solid line.