How to read I Ching changing lines
One moving line is easy: you read that line. With two, three or more, or none at all, you need a rule for which text to read. This page sets out the classical one, Zhu Xi’s, case by case, with a worked example for each.
The rule at a glance
Count the lines that came out 6 or 9. The primary hexagram is the one you cast; the relating hexagram is the one you get when every moving line flips.
| Moving | Read | Main text |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | the primary hexagram’s judgment | — |
| 1 | that one line, in the primary | — |
| 2 | both moving lines, in the primary | the upper of the two |
| 3 | the judgments of both hexagrams | the primary’s if line 1 moved, otherwise the relating one’s |
| 4 | the two lines that did not move, in the relating hexagram | the lower of the two |
| 5 | the one line that did not move, in the relating hexagram | — |
| 6 | hexagram 1: ‘using nines’; hexagram 2: ‘using sixes’; any other: the relating hexagram’s judgment | — |
Chinese quotations are given with this site’s own English translation. Every quotation from the hexagram texts is James Legge’s 1882 translation, copied from the matching hexagram page on this site. Bracketed ids such as [QIMENG] point to the sources at the foot of the page.
What a moving line is
Each of the six lines is cast as a number, 6, 7, 8 or 9, counting from the bottom. 7 (young yang, solid) and 8 (young yin, broken) stay as they are. 9 is old yang and 6 is old yin: a solid or broken line so full of itself that it turns into its opposite. Flip every 6 and 9 and you have the relating hexagram. The Oracle explains the coin and yarrow arithmetic behind those four numbers and draws both hexagrams for you. How to cast with coins or yarrow stalks walks through both methods by hand.
The line texts of the book are written for moving lines. The Chinese text names each line by its number, not by “yang” or “yin”: “nine in the second place”, “six in the fourth”. The commentary printed with Zhu Xi’s rule says why: 凡陽爻皆用九而不用七陰爻皆用六而不用八, “every yang line uses nine and not seven; every yin line uses six and not eight” [QIMENG]. That is why a reading with several moving lines raises a real question: each of those lines has its own text, and they can point in different directions.
The rule below is from Yixue Qimeng (易學啟蒙, “Introduction to the Study of the Changes”) by the Song-dynasty scholar Zhu Xi (1130–1200), as reprinted in the imperial Zhouyi Zhezhong of 1715. It is a convention, not something the book itself states: for two and four moving lines Zhu Xi says himself that no classic states a rule, and other readers disagree (see other readings).
Case by case, with a worked example for each
No moving lines
Rule: read the primary hexagram’s judgment. 凡卦六爻皆不變則占本卦彖辭而以内卦為貞外卦為悔: “when none of the six lines changes, divine by the judgment of the primary hexagram, taking the inner trigram as zhen and the outer as hui.” [QIMENG]
The zhen/hui labels split the figure into the lower (inner) and upper (outer) trigram. The source’s own illustration is a recorded consultation that met hexagram 18 and said “its zhen is wind, its hui is mountain”: wind is the lower trigram of 18, mountain the upper.
Worked example: 7, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8 → hexagram 11, no relating hexagram
No 6 and no 9, so nothing flips. Three solid lines under three broken ones is hexagram 11, Tài — Peace, and that is the whole reading. Read its judgment:
In Thâi (we see) the little gone and the great come. (It indicates that) there will be good fortune, with progress and success.
Here the inner trigram, the zhen, is Heaven and the outer, the hui, is Earth.
One moving line
Rule: read that one line of the primary hexagram. 一爻變則以本卦變爻辭占: “when one line changes, divine by the text of the changing line of the primary hexagram.” [QIMENG]
Worked example: 8, 8, 8, 6, 7, 7 → hexagram 20 changing to 12
Four broken lines under two solid ones is hexagram 20, Guān — Contemplation. Only line 4 is a 6. Flip it and the figure becomes hexagram 12, Pǐ — Standstill. Read line 4 of hexagram 20:
The fourth line, divided, shows one contemplating the glory of the kingdom. It will be advantageous for him, being such as he is, (to seek) to be a guest of the king.
This pair is not made up for the page: the source lists “Chen Jingzhong met Guan changing to Pi, the six in the fourth place changing” as one of six recorded one-line consultations that follow the rule.
Two moving lines
Rule: read both moving lines of the primary hexagram, with the upper one as the main text. 二爻變則以本卦二變爻辭占仍以上爻為主: “when two lines change, divine by the texts of the two changing lines of the primary hexagram, still taking the upper line as the main one.” [QIMENG]
Zhu Xi adds straight away: 經傳無文今以例推之當如此, “the classic and its commentaries have no text on this; inferring from the other cases, it should be so.” The two-line rule is his inference, not a quotation.
Worked example: 7, 9, 7, 8, 6, 7 → hexagram 26 changing to 37
The figure is hexagram 26, Dà Chù — Great Taming, with line 2 (a 9) and line 5 (a 6) moving. Flipped, it becomes hexagram 37, Jiā Rén — The Family. Read lines 2 and 5 of hexagram 26, line 5 first in weight:
The second line, undivided, shows a carriage with the strap under it removed.
The fifth line, divided, shows the teeth of a castrated hog. There will be good fortune.
Three moving lines
Rule: read the judgments of both the primary and the relating hexagram, no line texts. 三爻變則占本卦及之卦之彖辭而以本卦為貞之卦為悔前十卦主貞後十卦主悔: “when three lines change, divine by the judgments of the primary and the relating hexagram, the primary as zhen and the relating as hui; for the first ten, the zhen leads; for the last ten, the hui.” [QIMENG]
“The first ten” refers to the 20 hexagrams any figure can reach by changing exactly three lines, in the order Zhu Xi’s 32 change charts list them (printed straight after the rules). In those charts the first ten are exactly the ten in which line 1 is one of the three. So in practice: if your bottom line moved, the primary’s judgment leads; if it did not, the relating hexagram’s judgment leads. That step is read off the charts, not off a sentence, and the sources section says how it was checked.
Worked example: 9, 8, 8, 6, 9, 8 → hexagram 3 changing to 16
The figure is hexagram 3, Zhūn — Difficulty at the Beginning, with lines 1, 4 and 5 moving. Flipped, it becomes hexagram 16, Yù — Enthusiasm. Line 1 moved, so hexagram 3’s judgment leads:
Kun (indicates that in the case which it presupposes) there will be great progress and success, and the advantage will come from being correct and firm. (But) any movement in advance should not be (lightly) undertaken. There will be advantage in appointing feudal princes.
Yü indicates that, (in the state which it implies), feudal princes may be set up, and the hosts put in motion, with advantage.
This is the source’s own precedent: prince Chong’er of Jin, asking whether he would gain his state, met “zhen Zhun, hui Yu”, lines 1, 4 and 5 changing, and his adviser read “advantage in setting up feudal princes” in both judgments. In Legge’s English that phrase is still visible in both texts above.
Four moving lines
Rule: read the two lines that did not move, in the relating hexagram, with the lower one as the main text. 四爻變則以之卦二不變爻占仍以下爻為主: “when four lines change, divine by the two unchanged lines of the relating hexagram, still taking the lower line as the main one.” [QIMENG]
As with two lines, Zhu Xi adds 經傳亦無文今以例推之當如此: there is no classical text for this case either; it is inferred.
Worked example: 7, 6, 9, 7, 6, 9 → hexagram 30 changing to 58
The figure is hexagram 30, Lí — The Clinging, with lines 2, 3, 5 and 6 moving. Flipped, it becomes hexagram 58, Duì — The Joyous. Lines 1 and 4 did not move, so read lines 1 and 4 of hexagram 58, line 1 leading:
The first line, undivided, shows the pleasure of (inward) harmony. There will be good fortune.
The fourth line, undivided, shows its subject deliberating about what to seek his pleasure in, and not at rest. He borders on what would be injurious, but there will be cause for joy.
Notice that neither text belongs to hexagram 30, the one you cast. This is the case later critics objected to most (see other readings).
Five moving lines
Rule: read the one line that did not move, in the relating hexagram. 五爻變則以之卦不變爻占: “when five lines change, divine by the unchanged line of the relating hexagram.” [QIMENG]
Worked example: 6, 8, 9, 6, 6, 9 → hexagram 52 changing to 17
The figure is hexagram 52, Gèn — Keeping Still, with every line except line 2 moving. Flipped, it becomes hexagram 17, Suí — Following. Read line 2 of hexagram 17:
The second line, divided, shows us one who cleaves to the little boy, and lets go the man of age and experience.
Again the source’s own precedent: Lady Mu Jiang, on going to the Eastern Palace, met Gen changing to Sui with only the second line unchanged. Zhu Xi says the reading should have been “cleaving to the little boy, losing the grown man”, and that the court scribe, who quoted Sui’s judgment instead, was wrong.
All six lines moving
Rule: if the cast is hexagram 1 (all nines), read its extra text ‘using nines’; if hexagram 2 (all sixes), its extra text ‘using sixes’; for any other hexagram, read the relating hexagram’s judgment. 六爻變則乾坤占二用餘卦占之卦彖辭: “when all six change, Qian and Kun divine by the two ‘uses’; the other hexagrams by the judgment of the relating hexagram.” [QIMENG]
Hexagrams 1 and 2 are the only two with a seventh line text, which exists for exactly this case. Both are printed on their pages: hexagram 1 and hexagram 2.
Worked example: 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9 → hexagram 1 changing to 2
Six solid lines, all moving: hexagram 1, Qián — The Creative, turning wholly into hexagram 2, Kūn — The Receptive. Read hexagram 1’s ‘using nines’:
(The lines of this hexagram are all strong and undivided, as appears from) the use of the number nine. If the host of dragons (thus) appearing were to divest themselves of their heads, there would be good fortune.
Any other all-moving cast reads the relating hexagram’s judgment instead: 9, 9, 9, 6, 6, 6 is hexagram 11 turning into 12, and you would read hexagram 12’s judgment.
Other readings
Zhu Xi’s scheme was argued with almost as soon as it was printed. Three objections from the sources this page draws on:
- Read the matching line of the relating hexagram too. Huang Zongxi (1610–1695) argues that with one moving line you should read both the primary’s line and the same line of the relating hexagram, “for there is never a zhen without a hui”, and points to a recorded reading of hexagram 54 changing to 38 that quoted the top line of each. With three or more moving lines he takes the last (highest) changed line as the main one, for four and five lines as much as for three. [HUANG]
- Unmoving lines have no text to give. The line texts were written for nines and sixes, Huang says, not for sevens and eights, so reading a relating hexagram’s unmoving lines (Zhu Xi’s four- and five-line cases) “misses the point”. The editors of the Zhezhong printed the same doubt in a note after the change charts, and added that in the oldest recorded consultations diviners discuss the figure and its judgment whatever the number of changing lines. [HUANG] [QIMENG]
- Order of change instead of position. Huang also records a ‘Mr Wang’s method’ that reads every moving line, taking the first changed line as zhen and later ones as hui, “as stages”, and a method of Feng Nanyu that settles each cast by one deciding line, very often the highest moving line, treating lines 2 and 4, and lines 3 and 5, as pairs that “share function but differ in position”. [HUANG]
This site’s own Oracle does not yet apply any of these selections: it quotes every moving line of the primary hexagram, however many there are, and shows the relating hexagram beside it. With the table above you can pick out the Qimeng reading yourself.
Cast one now and count your moving lines.
Sources
[QIMENG] Zhu Xi, Yixue Qimeng, chapter ‘Examining changes and prognostication’ (考變占第四), with the commentary and change charts as printed in Yuzuan Zhouyi Zhezhong (1715), juan 20: Chinese Wikisource transcription, revision 759597, read 2026-10-01. The ‘first ten’ reading of the three-line rule was checked against the 32 charts in that transcription: in the 22 charts whose transcription lists 64 distinct hexagrams, read in both directions (44 checks), the first ten three-change hexagrams are always the ten in which line 1 moves. The other ten charts contain transcription slips (a hexagram listed twice) and were not used.
[HUANG] Huang Zongxi, Yixue Xiangshu Lun, juan 2, ‘Methods of divination’ (占法), which quotes the Qimeng rules as ‘the Qimeng method’ before setting out the alternatives: Chinese Wikisource transcription, revision 2446072, read 2026-10-01.
Hexagram texts: James Legge (tr.), The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XVI, The Yî King (Oxford, 1882), public domain, quoted from the Legge section of each hexagram page here; each page links its own transcription. English renderings of the Chinese above are this site’s, made for this page.