throwing the Coins

[manci]

I am little confused. If somebody could help me I would appreciate it.I have purchased the book "The I Ching Workbook" by R.L.Wing. The book explains the method of divination with the 3 coin method. The Head is the Yin and the tail is the Yang!!! Thats how i used to throw the coins until I bought a different book. That one explains the method of the coins in their reversed values, Head=yang, Tail=Yin. I have been searching on the internet and I realized that this is the right reading!!! Now I am wondering if all the divinations that I did for myself were wrong?! Am I right to change my old divinations with the Head=yang, Tail=Yin interpretation? Or should I just forget them and start over again? I asked the I ching and got the answer: 53 changing to 30.
Thank you.

 

[simon_uk]

I am a beginner myself but I believe it doesnt make a difference which side of the coin you use as heads and which side you use as tails as long as you decide beforehand which side is which and stick to it.

I am sure some of the more qualified members will tell you if that is wrong but that is my understanding.

Simon

 

[manci]

You could be right. That crossed my mind too. Thank you for taking the time to write me.

 

[hilary]

Hi Manci,

Simon is right - it makes no difference which side of the coin is which, provided you don't change your mind half-way There actually isn't a 'right' answer to the question of which side's which - even Chinese sources differ, let alone applications of this to Western coins. (I think Brad knows all the details about the Chinese sources.)

I'm not quite clear what question you asked to get the answer 53 moving to 30. But if you read the two hexagram names together, you find that you're looking at a story of gradual development towards clarity - as if you were 'marrying into' clear vision and gradually coming into a better relationship with coherence and meaning. There may be confusion and awkwardness along the way, but nothing can prevent this from bearing fruit in the end.

 

[Omnist]

This is a reply several years behind this post, but meant to help clarify confusion on coins. The comments written are good, but I would also suggest an important aspect of traditional Chinese versus Western thinking. The ancient Chinese coins were "struck" on one side only. That was the Earth side. The Heaven side was blank. In the West, an image, as of a ruler or leader, is struck on the "head" (hence the name). This is a rather Earthly ambition. In Confucian philosophy, man would be on Earth, below Heaven. Humans showing humility (made from the humus clay of Earth) would therefore be Yin. The tail side is often of a building, or temple, which is built to symbolize something greater. That would be more akin to Heaven. So, one way to reason this is that the struck side would be heads for Earth (the human ego) and the the unstruck side would be tails for Heaven (the transcendent). As later Chinese coins were struck on both sides, one has to figure which would be the "unstruck" side. Western coins, it seems to me, logically would be the inverse reasoning so often associated with Occidental versus Oriental "logics." For instance, Western maps have north at the top. Chinese maps had south at the top. Western style emphasizes self-aggrandizement. Chinese style emphasized self-reserve. It is a good reminder that Yin was often the preferred approach in Confucian ethics, and that Yang is the Creative Force of Heaven, not Earth and not human ego. In I Ching, it is helpful to cultivate receptivity to what the Cosmos seeks to convey through its patterns. Some interpret this as fate, but it is perhaps more useful to think of it as an actual communication from a living Cosmos. If this seems confusing, or if this seems like deification, I suggest considering the human being as an ecology of cells, 85 percent of which are host cells by weight, and 85 percent of which are alien cells by genome (the microbiota on the skin, in the gut, etc., which are all essential to our health and being). Our illusion of "self" is the surface of our consciousness, whereas our true being is the complexity of the whole. The Cosmos is vastly more complex, and includes us in it. One can have conversations with groups. And, there are communications that happen down at suborganism levels as well. The Cosmos has conversations through the patterns manifest in systems like the I Ching.

 

[bradford]

I did a survey of more than a hundred books in my collection.
There is nothing definitive that I've seen on the question.
This is from my introduction:

When using coins in divination, one side of the coin is assigned the
number Two, and the other, the number Three. There are disagreements in the lore
as to which is which. When using Chinese coins, there seems to be a moderate
preference for assigning the side of the coin with four characters the value of
two, and the side with no or two characters the value of three.
There is far less agreement regarding the heads-and-tails of Western
coins. On the “heads-equals-three” side of the list are the names of most of our
better English-speaking Yijing scholars, who occasionally offer the argument that
heads are Yang and therefore odd or three. However, on the “heads-equals-two”
side are nearly all of the Chinese names. There is no authority to appeal to. The
solution seems to be to make a choice, and more importantly, to stay with this
choice. I have always used heads as two. If you cannot decide yet, cut and use
three small disks of metal, wood or antler and make two marks on one side and
three on the other, or purchase and consecrate three Chinese coins.