The Yarrow Stalk Trigrams of Zhang Li

If you want to connect trigrams to the lines of a hexagram: Zhang Li 张理 from the Yuan dynasty has an interesting method for it.
Yijing Research Center: www.yjcn.nl
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[@svenchristensen6987]

always nice to get news from you, Harmen. Sincerely, Sven from Denmak

[@HansKr]

Another tool in the interpretation toolbox, I'll definitely try it out. Great video!

[@davidwalker6183]

Thank you for a most interesting lesson. It would be easy to write a small essay on the material provided here. I really appreciate your efforts. Thank you.

[@YiTubeChannel]

Thanks David. I've been thinking about writing a blog about this but currently making video's is easier for me.

[@freedda1]

Thanks Harmen. Some questions / ideas: Referring to the last graphic, where you assign a trigram to each individual line of the hexagram, this assumes that you tossed three coins in sequence, and not altogether (as you'd usually do for Yi divination), is that correct? And if the above is correct, this means you'd be doing 18 (3x6) coin tosses for each hexagram, yes? And ... (if the above is true), as an alternative I'm thinking I could toss the coins as I normally would, but assign 1st, 2nd, 3rd place to them based on the distance each was from me. This way I could generate a line and a trigram at the same time. And finally, if I understand you correctly, there is no interpretive system that goes with this method of generating trigrams from lines. Therefore, we can (or would need to) develop our own 'guidelines' for how we read or interpret these trigrams.

[@YiTubeChannel]

1. yes 2. yes 3. exactly. that's the idea 4. indeed, Zhang Li did not give any hints on how he thought this method could be applied in divination. Divination was not his concern here - he mainly wanted to show how all parts and numbers that are related to the Yijing are interconnected.

[@freedda1]

@@YiTubeChannel - Thank you.

[@advandepol7537]

Some people are of the opinion that yarrow stalks is the true way of casting, but not for me. After some time in the session I wonder what I am doing, as I have practically a hand in the outcome. I am still surprised that it gets attention.

[@YiTubeChannel]

It gets attention because it is the method advocated by early sources. It is connected to the early practice of the Yi which in itself is justification to study and apply it. But personally I don't care how a hexagram is generated - as long as randomness and meaningful chance are involved any method will do.