Questions to Ask the I Ching
For anyone consulting the I Ching with three coins or yarrow stalks, alone or with a reader, and stuck on how to word what they ask. The list runs the way a consultation does: open questions that suit any subject, then a decision, timing, a relationship, work and money, and yourself, ending with two for after an answer has come. Each note says what a clear or a worrying answer tends to sound like, which yes-or-no or either-or question the wording replaces, or what to do next.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Start here
What do I most need to understand about my situation right now?
Why ask it
The safest opening when nothing in particular has gone wrong, because a hexagram is a picture of a situation and that is all this asks for. Read the name and the Judgment first and look for where that picture already fits your life. Leave the lines until you have found it.
What can I expect if I go ahead with this?
Why ask it
The rewrite for any question that starts with "Should I". A hexagram carries no yes or no, so asked "Should I move?" you are left deciding whether Retreat means stay or go. Asked this way it describes where the move leads, and the deciding stays with you.
What is the best attitude for me to take toward this?
Why ask it
Attitude questions suit the text, which says far more about conduct than about outcomes. A usable answer names a stance such as modesty, firmness or holding back, and you can try it within the week. Write down what "this" is, in one sentence, before you cast.
What is your comment on the plan I have written out?
Why ask it
About as open as a question gets, and it only works if the plan is on paper in a sentence or two first. Expect a description more than a verdict: who is strong, what is blocked, where the risk sits. With a reader, hand over the written plan and ask them to read against it.
What should I carry into today?
Why ask it
A daily cast is a common way to learn the 64 hexagrams, one unremarkable day at a time. Note the hexagram in the morning and reread it at night. The fit is often clearer looking back, and a day when nothing fits belongs in the notebook too.
What is hidden from me in this situation?
Why ask it
For when you have the facts and still feel uneasy. Watch the changing lines more than the main text: a line warning about a person in a certain position, or about pressing ahead, is usually the part you had not counted. No changing lines is commonly read as a situation that is what it looks like.
What is the real question underneath the one I wrote down?
Why ask it
Cast this when your question changes every time you try to write it. If the hexagram speaks to another subject, say a quarrel when you asked about money, rewrite the question around that and come back to it another day.
How should I approach consulting you?
Why ask it
A question for a first cast, when nothing is at stake and you can give the reading a whole evening. Read it for manner: a reply about sincerity, or the Youthful Folly text in which the pupil has to come to the teacher, is about how to ask. Keep it as page one of the notebook.
What picture would you give me of the year ahead?
Why ask it
Some people cast once at a birthday or the new year and keep the hexagram as a theme. It is too broad to act on. Reread it each season and note beside it what has happened, which teaches you more about the book than about the year.
A decision
What can I expect if I leave things as they are?
Why ask it
The partner to "What can I expect if I go ahead?", and it needs its own cast and its own sheet of paper. Two hexagrams side by side are the comparison. One hexagram for "this or that" leaves you guessing which option it describes.
What would choosing this option ask of me?
Why ask it
With two live options, cast once for each and write its name into the question: "the Denver job", never "the other one". Compare what each asks of you as well as what it promises. One answer may be about endurance and the other about restraint, and you know which you have more of.
What is the main obstacle to this plan?
Why ask it
Answers tend to place the obstacle in a person, in the timing or in your own haste. Obstruction or Difficulty at the Beginning says so in its name. Subtler is a reply about quarrels or about followers, which points at people and leaves the plan alone.
How should I go about making this decision?
Why ask it
This asks about method and leaves the outcome alone, which helps when someone is rushing you. Advice to wait, to keep to what is correct or to see someone of experience is an instruction about process. If it sends you to another person for counsel, go before you cast again.
What should I be careful of if I go ahead?
Why ask it
A good second cast after a favorable first one. Line texts are full of specific cautions: against advancing too far, against the wrong helper, against arrogance at the top. Take whichever line is changing as the place to slow down.
What can I do to give this its best chance?
Why ask it
"Will I get it?" and "Will it work out?" both turn into this. A forecast leaves you waiting, and this wording returns something to do before the result is known. If the reply counsels waiting or modesty, the best chance may lie in not pushing.
What would this decision look like a year from now?
Why ask it
For a choice whose first months are easy to picture and the rest is not, such as moving for a job. Date the page, and when the year is up read the hexagram again against what happened. Checking old readings this way is how you find out how far to trust your own interpreting.
What makes this decision weigh on me so heavily?
Why ask it
Try it when the options are clear and you still cannot move. The reply often has less to do with the choice than with who will be let down by it. A hexagram about family, duty or holding together tells you which weight you are carrying.
What is the right way to carry this out, now that I have decided?
Why ask it
For the oracle consulted late, after the choice is made, which is one of its most practical uses. Lines read as advice on conduct: go step by step, do not go alone, finish what is begun. A reply that seems to reopen the decision deserves one honest look and no second cast.
Timing
What is the nature of the time I am in?
Why ask it
The book is organized around kinds of time and the conduct that suits each, which makes this one of the questions it answers most directly. Waiting or Standstill is not bad news: it says what kind of effort this period rewards. You are misreading if you catch yourself sorting the hexagram into good or bad before you have read it.
What does acting on this now bring?
Why ask it
Ask this where you were about to write "Is now the right time?", and ask about waiting until a date you name on a separate cast. "It furthers one to cross the great water" is traditionally taken as encouragement to attempt something large, and talk of keeping still reads the other way.
What does waiting until the end of the year bring?
Why ask it
Put your own date in, because "waiting" with no end means nothing. A reply about stagnation or something spoiling says the delay has a price. One about ripening or gradual progress says it does not.
What needs to be in place before this can happen?
Why ask it
Use this in place of any "When will" question: no hexagram contains a date, so asking when returns a description you cannot turn into weeks. Asked about conditions it can name one, such as an ally, a preparation or something that has to end first. Make that a task.
How can I use this time while nothing is moving?
Why ask it
For the stretch when the matter is out of your hands: an application, a sale, a result you are waiting on. The hexagram called Waiting pictures a person who eats, drinks and stays in good spirits meanwhile, which is the level of advice to expect. Suspect yourself if you start reading it as a hint about the outcome.
What is coming to an end for me?
Why ask it
Ask it at a change you did not choose, such as a layoff or a child leaving home. The second hexagram, the one the changing lines produce, is where to look for what follows the ending. If it reads bleak, leave it a week before you ask anything else.
What should I prepare for over the next three months?
Why ask it
A season is short enough to remember and long enough to act in. Keep the word prepare: "What will happen?" gives you something to dread or hope for, and this gives you something to get ready. When the three months are up, write one line under the reading about what you did get ready for.
A relationship
What is the present condition of this relationship?
Why ask it
Name the person on the page before you cast, whether a partner, a friend or a parent. Some readers take the lower trigram as the one asking and the upper as the other party, so look at which is firm and which gives way. Influence or Holding Together reads as health, and Opposition or Standstill as trouble both of you already know about.
What do I need to see clearly before this relationship goes further?
Why ask it
For the early months, when the tempting question is whether this is the one. Development, whose picture is a courtship that goes forward one step at a time, is advice about pace. A reply about following, or about being moved by someone else's mood, is a prompt to check whose pace you have been keeping.
What is my part in the difficulty between us?
Why ask it
The hardest relationship question to ask and often the most readable, because the text speaks to the person holding the coins. A line about stubbornness or pressing too hard is plain speaking. If the reply flatters you, be slow to trust your reading of it.
What can I do to improve things between us?
Why ask it
"Will we get back together?" and "Do they love me?" ask about another person's heart, which a hexagram does not name and you cannot check. This wording asks for your own next move, and a reply to hold back counts as one.
What would be the effect of telling them how I feel?
Why ask it
Ask before a hard conversation, with the person and the subject written down. Read for manner as much as result: words like gentle, sincere or gradual tell you how to say it. If you are truly undecided, ask about staying silent on a separate cast.
What would committing to this person bring?
Why ask it
"Should I marry them or leave?" splits into two casts, and this is the first. Duration and The Family speak to it directly. A worrying reply is one about entering something from a weak position or for the wrong reasons, and it calls for a conversation with the person before any second cast.
What would it mean for me to step back from this relationship?
Why ask it
The counterpart to asking what committing would bring, best asked on another day so the first reply has settled. "Step back" is looser than "end" on purpose: the book gives a whole hexagram to retreat as something done in good time and from strength. Neither reply is a ruling on someone else's life.
What is standing between me and a lasting relationship?
Why ask it
"Will I meet someone this year?" can only be waited on. This wording tends to return something about habits or circumstances, which you can work on. Go gently with a harsh reading: one cast is a single angle on a large subject.
How can I best support this person through what they are facing?
Why ask it
A fair way to ask about someone else, since the question stays on your own conduct. What they are thinking or what they will do is theirs, and it reads badly besides. The reply may be to feed them and stay near, or to let them work it out alone.
Work and money
What would taking this job bring into my life?
Why ask it
Write the job, the employer and the place into the question. Notice where the reply puts you: a line about serving under someone, or about a post with no real authority, is about the role, and the salary does not change it. Ask about staying where you are in a second cast.
What is the outlook for my work where I am now?
Why ask it
The stay-put counterpart to a question about a new job, and a fair yearly check even with no offer on the table. Steady replies speak of duration, development or a well that keeps giving. Exhaustion or standstill is a prompt to look around, not an instruction to resign.
How should I handle the trouble with my manager?
Why ask it
The hexagram called Conflict says outright that a quarrel carried to the bitter end goes badly and that stopping halfway is better. Read your own reply for who holds the stronger position. Anything about a formal complaint or your rights depends on the employer and the place, so ask how it works there.
What would starting this business ask of me?
Why ask it
It asks about demands in place of success, which is the part a founder can plan for. Difficulty at the Beginning reads like common sense here: early confusion, find helpers, do not try it alone. The oracle is no check on the numbers, so run those separately.
Where should my effort at work go this season?
Why ask it
A focus question for someone with too many projects. Limitation is advice to narrow down, and Increase says the push is worth making. Before you close the notebook, write down the one project the reply moves to the front and the one it moves to the back.
How should I carry myself in this negotiation?
Why ask it
Cast it the night before an interview, a review or a pay discussion. Advice toward modesty does not mean asking for less: in the text the modest person is the one who carries things through. Advice about not showing your full strength can be taken literally in the room.
What do I need to understand about how I am handling money?
Why ask it
Keep it about conduct. The book sets two hexagrams side by side, Decrease and Increase, on having less and having more, and both are about how you carry it. What to do about a debt, a pension or an investment is a question for someone qualified where you live.
Yourself
What in me is getting in my own way?
Why ask it
Expect to be described more bluntly than a friend would manage. Youthful Folly, Obstruction or a top line about going too far are plain replies and need little interpreting. Leave this one alone on a day when you are already hard on yourself.
What quality should I be cultivating at this point in my life?
Why ask it
Each hexagram has a short paragraph, the Image, that says what a person of character does in that kind of time. Read that paragraph for this question and skip the rest. Copy it out and keep it where you will see it for a month.
What am I really after in wanting this?
Why ask it
Ask it about a goal you have chased for a long time without asking why. A reply about nourishment, rest or company suggests the goal is standing in for something simpler. A reply that matches the goal as you stated it is worth having too.
How can I meet this hard stretch well?
Why ask it
Several hexagrams describe plain hardship, among them Oppression, The Abysmal and Darkening of the Light, and each says how a person keeps their footing in it. Read the reply as conduct for the duration. If the hard stretch concerns your health or your safety, talk to a doctor or someone you trust as well.
What have I outgrown?
Why ask it
Suits a birthday, a move or the end of a long job. Look at what the hexagram changes into as much as where it starts. If nothing in it rings true, write that down and read it again in six months.
Where in my life am I pushing when I should be yielding?
Why ask it
Firm and yielding are the two kinds of line every hexagram is built from, so this is asked in the book's own terms. A reply made mostly of yielding lines, or one that changes into The Receptive, is about as direct as it gets. Turn it around another day and ask where you give way too easily.
What am I missing in the answer I was just given?
Why ask it
The one follow-up worth allowing to a reading you could not understand, and it should wait at least a day. The text itself, under Youthful Folly, says an oracle asked two or three times stops informing. Treat the new hexagram as a second angle on the first, never as its replacement.
How do I put the last answer into practice?
Why ask it
Ask it only once you can say in a sentence what the last answer was. Changing lines are the practical part here. With none, reread the first reading for a verb you can act on, and stop consulting on the subject for now.
Wording a question the I Ching can answer
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you pick up the coins
Start with what or how
Questions that begin with what, how or "what can I expect if" give a hexagram room to describe a situation, which is what it does. Will, should, when and which ask for a kind of answer the book does not contain.
One subject per cast
"What about my job and my marriage?" returns one hexagram you can pin to either. Split it into two questions and, if you can, two days.
Name the person, the place and the date
"This relationship" and "this offer" are fine in a list and too loose on the page. Write the name, the employer or the city, and a span of time where one applies, so that months later you still know what was asked.
Write it down first
Put the question in a notebook before you touch the coins or the stalks, then the six lines from the bottom up, then the date. With a reader, hand them the written question. One held only in your head shifts to fit whatever comes back.
If someone is reading for you
Give the reader the question as you wrote it, subject included. A reading made against a question you kept back cannot be checked by either of you. Readers differ in the translation they use, in how they treat several changing lines and in what they charge, so ask how it works with them before you start.
Rephrasing yes-or-no and either-or questions
Why yes or no reads badly
A hexagram is six lines with a name, a short judgment and advice on conduct. The text does say "good fortune" or "misfortune" in places, but about a way of acting and never about your plan by name. A closed question therefore leaves you deciding whether Waiting or The Wanderer means yes, and you will decide the way you hoped. Ask "What can I expect if I do this?" and the same hexagram reads as an answer.
Either-or becomes two questions
"Should I take the job or stay?" gives one picture and no way to tell which choice it shows. Ask "What would taking the job bring?" and "What can I expect if I stay?" as separate casts, and compare the two hexagrams.
"When will" becomes "what has to happen"
There are no dates in the text. "When will the house sell?" turns into "What needs to be in place before the house sells?" or "What does waiting until spring bring?", and either of those can be read.
Questions about someone else become questions about you
"Does she want me back?" asks for something nobody at the table can verify. "What can I do to improve things between us?" or "What is my part in this?" keeps the answer where you can use it.
Reading what comes back
Name and Judgment first
Read the hexagram's name and its opening text against your written question before anything else, and say in a sentence what picture it gives. The hexagram names in the notes on this page follow the Wilhelm and Baynes translation, and yours may use others.
Changing lines
With three coins, a toss of three alike makes a changing line. Those lines are the specific part of the answer, and turning each into its opposite gives a second hexagram that shows where things tend. Read the lines that changed and leave the others. When several lines change, traditions differ on which to weigh most, so choose one method and keep to it.
No changing lines
A hexagram with no changing lines is read whole, from its main text, and is commonly taken as a steady situation. It is not a lesser answer.
When it seems to answer something else
Before deciding the reading missed, check whether it is describing you, the one asking, when you asked about the plan. If it still does not fit after a day, record it and move on. Entries that made no sense are worth rereading a few months later.
Coins or yarrow stalks
Three coins tossed six times take a few minutes. Fifty yarrow stalks take far longer, and the slowness gives the question time to settle. The wording advice on this page is the same for both.
What tends to go wrong
Asking again until it agrees
Repeating a question because the first hexagram was unwelcome leaves you with two readings and no more clarity, and the text itself warns against it. Change the subject, or wait until something in the situation has actually changed.
Asking in a panic
A question written at midnight in the middle of a fight is usually three questions and an accusation. Write it, sleep, and see what is left of it in the morning.
Testing it
Lottery numbers, match scores and questions whose answer you already know return a hexagram that can be bent to fit anything. The book is advice on conduct, so ask it about yours.
Using it in place of a professional
Symptoms, contracts, custody, debts and immigration matters need a qualified person, and the rules differ by country, state and provider, so ask how it works where you are. What a reading can speak to is the attitude you bring to that meeting.
Asking for someone who has not asked
Casting about a friend's marriage or a grown child's choices is reading other people's mail. Ask how you can be of use to them, or leave it.