When you cast, each line comes out as a number: 6, 7, 8 or 9. The 7s and 8s are stable lines. The 6s and 9s are lines in the act of changing. Each one is a moving line, and it's often the most personal part of your answer.
Old and young
Tradition explains the four numbers through the image of age:
- 7, young yang: a solid line with a way still to go. It stays as it is.
- 8, young yin: a broken line in the same position. It stays too.
- 9, old yang: a solid line that has reached its peak. Whatever reaches an extreme turns over, so it becomes yin.
- 6, old yin: a broken line at its peak. It becomes yang.
This is one of the book's central ideas: nothing stays at its extreme forever. The height of summer already holds the start of autumn. To see how these numbers are produced, see How to Toss the Coins or The Yarrow Stalk Method. The 7s and 8s have their own entry: stable line.
The second hexagram
If your cast has changing lines, you actually have two hexagrams:
- The primary hexagram, the one that came up as cast. It describes the situation now.
- The relating hexagram, the one you get by turning every 6 into a yang line and every 9 into a yin line, leaving all the others as they are. It shows where the situation is heading.
An example. You get Activity, six yang lines, and the first one is a 9. When it changes, the bottom line becomes yin: wind is now below and heaven stays above. The second hexagram is Lack of Firmness.
If no lines are changing, there's only one hexagram. The situation is more settled, and you read its main text.
There's much more to say about the second hexagram; you'll find it in The Relating Hexagram.
What to read: Zhu Xi's guidance
With one changing line, it's simple: you read its text. But what do you do when three change, or five? There are several traditions. One of the most widely used comes from Zhu Xi, the great Song dynasty commentator, who set it out in the twelfth century:
- No changing lines: read the judgment of the primary hexagram.
- One: read that line's text.
- Two: read both; the upper one is the main one.
- Three: read the judgments of both hexagrams. The primary one is the ground, and the second shows the direction.
- Four: read the two lines that aren't changing, but in the second hexagram; the lower one is the main one.
- Five: read the one line that isn't changing, in the second hexagram.
- Six: read the judgment of the second hexagram. Activity and Passivity have an extra text for this case, the use nine, use six.
Notice the logic: the more lines change, the more weight the second hexagram carries. With few, the present situation leads; with many, what's coming does.
When all six change in Activity or Passivity
These two are the only hexagrams with a seventh text. If all six lines of Activity are 9s, the classical text reads: 見羣龍无首，吉. In our poetic version: "Dragons are seen in a throng, none at the head. Good fortune." And in the practical layer: "When everything moves, the strength lies in the group, not in a leader: work alongside others without imposing yourself, and things will go well for you."
An example with two lines
In the example in How to Toss the Coins, the cast gave Adapting with lines 2 and 5 changing. Following Zhu Xi, you read both and give more weight to the fifth:
- Line 2: "Choosing very carefully who you surround yourself with makes your projects succeed."
- Line 5: "If a larger purpose drives you, a dream that inspires you, you'll get what you want."
The second hexagram, A Subordinate Role, stays in the background: where the situation could go.
Other ways to read
Zhu Xi's guidance is one tradition among others, not a law. Many readers today read every changing line, however many there are, and then the whole second hexagram. Others give more weight to the lowest line, or to the one in a central place. Plum Blossom numerology always works with a single moving line and has its own rules.
Pick an approach that makes sense to you and use it consistently. That way you can compare your readings over time. In Cambios you can toss the coins on screen and save your readings, with their changing lines marked, so you can come back to them whenever you like.