oracle practice · 5 minute lesson
Read a question in three layers
Cast four counters for each of three layers, then explore how their counts become a verse and reading.
Try the tool →Three small steps
Name your subject
Write a question or carry one quietly. Begin with Cast the Heaven counters. Watch the first group fall and count its visible marked faces.
Complete the three layers
Continue with the Man counters and then the Earth counters, four in each group. Keep the three counts in order rather than adding them into one total.
Read from wide to near
Read the assembled figure's verse, judgment, and interpretation. Notice special notes for fully open or closed layers, then consider surrounding conditions, your part, and the ground beneath it.
Words to recognize
- Tier
- One layer of four counters: Heaven, Man, or Earth.
- Count
- The number of marked faces showing in a layer, from zero through four.
- Open or closed
- The tool's descriptions for a layer with all marked faces up or all down.
try what you learned
How should you keep the three counter counts when reading the figure?
Take it into practice
- Which part of the reading concerns your own choices?
- Which part describes conditions you can acknowledge without controlling?
Art, sources & approach
The counters, staged reveal, and explanatory reading are this site's adaptation of Ling Qi Jing, not a critical translation or physical reconstruction.
Lesson diagrams and interface illustrations: Brews and Bloom. Diagrams simplify the idea being taught; they are not historical artifacts.
Updated