Using the I Ching

I’m generally not one who believes in the supernatural, but the I Ching as a divination tool has proved pretty useful to me in recent times.

The first time I had consulted it (via free, online I Ching divination sites that you can find dozens of via a simple search), it was mostly out of fun and curiosity. I wasn’t in a great spot, and could find no answers, so thought, why not give the I Ching a go?

The readings were be cryptic, and often not very specific, as these things tend to be. And yet, that’s precisely where the beauty lay.

When I was looking for answers to unanswerable questions, it was always outward looking. I sought people, books, articles, social media and the like. But how does one find answers to unanswerable questions, especially ones deeply personal and specific to one’s unique circumstance?

That’s where the I Ching came in for me. I sought a divination, and it gave me one. Out of context, the reading would make little sense; like a parable without a moral. And yet it helped.

In not being specific, in being vague, it made me work to see how the reading related to the problem I was meditating on. I sought new connections, formed new ideas, and ultimately saw the problem in a different light.

It reminded me a lot of Edward de Bono’s Po (a word standing in for “provocation”), or like the game where you open a dictionary and randomly search for a word to see how you might fit it in your next sentence or idea in a brainstorm.

Po, try it.