I Ching Three-Coin Method: Record Six Throws Correctly

Overview

Keep a numbered record beside the coins. This guide explains the arithmetic used by YiInsight, with a synthetic example you can check by hand. It does not claim that coin arithmetic determines events or that every tradition uses an identical convention.

Fix the convention before the first throw

Choose which face counts as heads and keep that choice throughout the cast. In the YiInsight implementation, heads contributes 3 and tails contributes 2. Three coins therefore produce one total between 6 and 9. The toss supplies the input; addition and line conversion are deterministic once that input exists. Deterministic calculation does not mean that a random toss is predictable.

Use a row for each throw. Write the total immediately, so you do not have to reconstruct it from memory after the next throw. If a coin falls out of view, agree how to handle an unreadable throw before continuing rather than choosing a rule to obtain a preferred result.

Convert each total into a line

The four totals preserve two kinds of information: the original line shape and whether that shape changes. Do not simplify all broken lines to the same number or all solid lines to the same number; doing so loses the changing-line information.

Build upward and check a complete example

The first total becomes line 1 at the bottom; the sixth becomes line 6 at the top. For the synthetic sequence 7, 8, 6, 7, 8, 9, read upward as solid, broken, broken, solid, broken, solid. Changing positions are 3 and 6, counted from the bottom.

Keep that original record and mark the two positions that change. Do not erase the totals or replace them with the second figure. A useful recording check is to read your numbered totals back aloud before drawing anything else. The primary and relating hexagram guide explains what these two figures represent in the calculation.

Stop calculation before interpretation

With no 6 or 9, every line is stable; YiInsight records no separate relating hexagram. With changing lines, the transformed figure follows from the original totals, not from a second set of throws. Keep the original totals even after drawing the transformed figure.

Choosing which passages to emphasize is a separate interpretive method. This guide does not prescribe such a rule or establish a single classical rule for multiple changing lines. See changing lines for that boundary, then use how to read an I Ching reading to distinguish the calculation from commentary and reflection.

Key takeaways

• Fix the convention before the first throw.
• Convert each total into a line.
• Stop calculation before interpretation.

Conclusion

Before putting the coins away, check that your record has six numbered totals, starts at the bottom and preserves every 6 and 9. You can then construct the relating figure from those same totals without making another cast.