How to ask the I Ching a question
Maybe the question in your head right now is about him: whether he still thinks of you, whether he is coming back, whether you should have said something different. Or it's about work: the offer, the interview, the job you keep almost leaving. Those are real questions, and the I Ching, the Book of Changes, will take them. It answers best when they're asked a certain way.
Here is how I'd shape a question before a cast (three coins thrown six times, a line per throw), with questions about love and work turned into ones the book can answer, and what to do when the answer is hard to hear.
Ask about you, not about them
The book reads situations. Each cast builds a hexagram, a figure of six lines, each line solid or broken, and the hexagram gives you a picture of the moment you're in and advice about your part in it. What it can't do is open someone else's heart. A question that asks it to leaves you guessing at the answer, perhaps the way you have been guessing at him.
So when the question is about him, give it a quarter turn toward you. “What does he feel?” becomes “What am I holding here, and what is mine to do with it?” His feelings stay his. Your next step is something the reading can actually speak to, and something you can take tomorrow.
However much you care about him, you can still ask this way. You're the one in the picture, so when you ask from where you stand, the answer lands there too, where you can use it.
One question, one cast
Put one thing in each question. “Should I take the job and move for it?” is two questions sharing a breath, and a single cast can't speak clearly to both. Ask the one that matters most right now. The other can have its own sitting.
Write it down before the coins fall. A question kept only in your head has a way of shifting after the answer comes, until the answer seems to fit something you never quite asked. On paper it stays put, and so does what the reading says about it.
Then ask it once. The book says so itself. The Judgment of hexagram 4, Youthful Learning (the Judgment is the old verdict on the whole figure), pictures a teacher and a student who keeps coming back with the same question:
初筮告，再三瀆，瀆則不告。
— 周易 (Zhouyi), the received text
When he shows (the sincerity that marks) the first recourse to divination, I instruct him. If he apply a second and third time, that is troublesome; and I do not instruct the troublesome.
— James Legge, 1882
In plainer words: the first cast answers. Casting again because you hoped for something else asks a different question, whether the book will tell you what you want, and that one has no useful answer. If the first answer puzzles you, stay with it and read it more slowly. That is often where it opens up.
Relationship questions that work
Here are three questions people bring about him, each turned a little so the reading has something to answer.
“Is he thinking about me?” becomes “What do I need to understand about the distance between us right now?”
His thoughts stay out of reach. A distance, if that is what you are living with, is something a reading can speak to: what kind of quiet this is, and what fits you to do inside it. The page on is he thinking about me goes further into it.
“Does he miss me?” becomes “Is it wise for me to reach out to him this week?”
Now it's a yes-or-no about your own step, the kind of question the old verdict words fit best: it furthers, or it does not further. Can the I Ching answer yes or no? shows how that lean is read.
“Will he come back?” becomes “How can I stand steady while I don't know?”
Whether he comes back is his to decide, and no reading can promise it. What a reading can do is speak to how you hold the waiting, and what is yours to do while it lasts. The page on will he come back sits with this one longer.
Career questions that work
Work questions turn the same way. The ones that ask the book to forecast, like “Will I get the job?” or “Will they promote me?”, leave you waiting. The ones about your own move give you something to do on Monday.
“Will I get the job?” becomes “How should I go into this interview?”
A reading can't see the decision being made in someone else's office. It can speak to how you carry yourself into the room, and what to lean on once you're there.
“Should I quit?” becomes “Is it wise to start looking for something else now?”
That one is already about your step, so you could ask it as it stands. Narrowing it helps: one move, one stretch of time, and a yes that tells you what to do next.
“Which offer should I take?” becomes “What would taking this offer ask of me?”
Ask it of each offer in its own sitting. Two offers in one cast is two questions sharing a breath again, and each one deserves a clear look.
Under all of these sits the same pattern. An askable question names your own step and a near stretch of time, and it's one you could act on whichever way the lean goes.
What to do with a hard answer
Sometimes the coins fall and the lean goes against you: an unfavorable verdict, or a changing line (one that moved in the cast and adds its own message) saying wait when you wanted to move. That can sting, especially if you asked at the end of a long day, hoping.
Read past the verdict word first. The old text seldom stops at a no. It describes the conditions: what is blocked, what would help, where the way through runs. A hard answer is usually a hard description of now, and a description is something you can work with.
Then let it stand. Casting again for a softer answer only blurs what the first one showed. Sleep on it if you can. A hard answer often reads differently in the morning, once the sting has gone out of it.
And keep the choice where it belongs, with you. The book gives advice, and advice can be weighed. You can hear it, keep what rings true, and still decide for yourself. The reading describes the ground; where you step is yours.
One small thing to do tonight: write down the line that stung, and next to it, one thing it asks of you. Just one.
Or let Lin help you ask it
If your question won't come out tidy, bring it as it is. At my table I'll ask you a few things first, one at a time, and anything you'd rather not say, you can leave out. We look for the question underneath together, and then I throw the coins.