I CHING Hexagrams.

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I CHING ONLINE

The ancient Chinese divination online. Free Reading: Ask a question, get a hexagram, read the I Ching text.

Free I CHING Reading
Get the hexagram that answers your question online.

I CHING Hexagrams
The 64 hexagrams and their meaning in divination.

I CHING Trigrams
The eight trigrams and how they combine into the hexagrams.

YIN and YANG
The basic polar opposites of the I Ching explained.

I CHING Books
A few of the English versions of The Book of Change reviewed.

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Books by Stefan Stenudd:

Tao Te Ching - The Taoism of Lao Tzu Explained, by Stefan Stenudd.

The Taoism of Lao Tzu Explained The great Chinese classic, translated and extensively commented by Stefan Stenudd. Click the image to see the book at Amazon.

Tarot Unfolded, by Stefan Stenudd.

This book presents an imaginative reading of the divination cards, which is the most appropriate for the Tarot since it consists of symbolic images. Several spreads are introduced, as well as the meanings of all the 78 cards and their pictures. Click the image to see the book at Amazon.

Cosmos of the Ancients, by Stefan Stenudd.

Cosmos of the Ancients

The philosophers of Ancient Greece and what they thought about cosmology, myth, and the gods. Click the image to see the book at Amazon.

Your 2013 Horoscope

Your 2013 Horoscope

Astrological 2013 Predictions for the World and the Zodiac Signs. This book explains how forecasting with the horoscope is done, and includes extensive predictions for the coming year. Click the image to see the book at Amazon.

I Ching. The Book of Change.

I CHING
The Book of Change

Yin and Yang. Brush art by Stefan Stenudd.

Yin and Yang

The Polar Opposites of Ancient Chinese Cosmology

In I Ching, the ceaseless change is caused by the dynamics between yin and yang, the polar opposites of ancient Chinese cosmology. Yang stands for heaven and Yin for earth. Light and dark, warm and cold, and so on. Anything in the universe bascially consists of these opposites, and the balance or imbalance between them.

Yin and Yang originally refer to the shady side and the sunny side, like on a tree: One side of its trunk faces the south and most of the sunlight, whereas the opposite side faces the north and is mostly in the shadow. That may have been the very first polarity observed by those Chinese thinkers, long ago, who came up with the idea.

If so, that can also explain the principle that neither Yin nor Yang is ever in a completely pure state. There's always some Yin in Yang and vice versa, like the trunk of a tree gets some light also on the north side and occasional shade on its south.

The famous image symbolizing Yin and Yang shows it by the white dot in the black field and the black one in the white field, as can be seen on the image above (a drawing I made long ago with brush and ink, in the Eastern fashion).

This image is called T'ai chi (or Taiji), The Supreme Ultimate. The grand name is because the symbol shows the inner workings of everything in the cosmos - the dynamics between Yin and Yang.

In I Ching, Yin and Yang are represented in a very basic way, by a line that's either solid or broken. The solid line represents Yang, and the broken one Yin:

Yang line.

Yin line.

These are combined into eight trigrams (three lines each), which are then combined into the 64 possible hexagrams. Here are the eight trigrams:

The eight trigrams.

More about the trigrams here.

Stefan Stenudd

Stefan Stenudd

About me

I'm a Swedish writer and instructor of the peaceful martial art aikido. In addition to fiction, I've written books about Taoism as well as other Chinese and Japanese traditions. I'm also a historian of ideas, researching the thought patterns in creation myths. Google Profile. Here is my personal website: stenudd.com

Other Websites:

Taoism

Taoism, the old Chinese philosophy of life, based on Tao, the Way. Click the image to visit.

The old Tarot deck of cards for divination. How to use it and what each card means. Free online spread. Click the image to visit.

Complete Horoscope

How predicitions are done by classical astrology and the complete horoscope, with many examples. Click the image to visit.

The ancient Chinese life energy qi (chi) explained and simple instructions on how to exercise it. Click the image to visit.

Creation stories from around the world, and the ancient cosmology they reveal. Click the image to visit.