Reading Liu Yao from the chart inward
Six tosses give you a hexagram name. That is the beginning: what you read is each line's stem-branch, relative and spirit, and which line carries Shi or Ying. This page follows the order you actually meet them — cast once, then see how every column is built.
Start with what you are asking
Liu Yao is one question, one cast. The charting rules are fixed; which line you read depends on the question. Starting from the question beats memorising spirit names.
Should I do it
Between two options, what can a hexagram say?
Liu Yao maps the matter onto one useful spirit, then reads that line against Shi (the asker's side) and the month and day markers. It measures the situation now, not the odds of the future.
Strong and moving with day support reads very differently from hidden and still. But “strong” means the matter is supported on the chart — not that it will go well in your life.
Choosing the useful spirit is a judgement; a different choice can reverse the conclusion, so this page never picks for you.
Cast once and follow alongBetween two people
Where does this relationship stand right now?
Shi and Ying are a pair: Shi is your side, Ying is the other party or the environment. Their generate/control/combine/clash relations, plus the useful spirit, form the base reading.
Shi and Ying combining while both are still reads as “holding”; one of them moving reads as “about to change”. Both describe, neither advises.
Relationship questions are where schools disagree most: wealth as useful spirit, or the Ying line?
Cast once and follow alongMoney and stakes
Is this worth putting in?
Money questions usually take wealth as the useful spirit, then check whether brothers (peers, competition) control it and whether offspring (the source of wealth) is present.
Wealth present while brothers move is traditionally read as “there is money, but it gets divided”; wealth hidden is read as “nothing usable right now”. Structure, not returns.
A chart cannot compute a return. Any page quoting a figure or a date deserves suspicion.
Cast once and follow alongAsking again
Why is a second cast for the same thing different?
Because the markers change. Cast on another day and all six spirits move; pass a solar term and the month branch changes too. Same matter, two moments, two charts.
That is why the tradition says one matter, one cast: repeated casting removes the reference point for “what is the situation now”.
This page records the cast moment precisely so that claim stays checkable.
Cast once and follow alongThese cards promise no outcome. They only say where a question lands on the chart, and how far that part can go.
Cast your six lines
The toss runs in your browser; the server adds the month marker, day marker and the charting. Every column in the result names the rule it came from.
The cast
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This clock is the cast moment, read live from your device; it is locked in the second you start tossing. Months turn at the solar term, not at the lunar new moon.The cast moment and six results go only to this site's own endpoint. Nothing is stored, tracked or put in the URL.
The chart follows traditional assignment rules; that does not make those rules verified descriptions of the future. This page makes no prediction and is not medical, legal or financial advice.
Nothing is saved. If you only want the fields explained first, the next section walks through a fixed example chart with exactly the same structure.
What each column is doing
The chart above is a fixed example's real output, not your cast. Click any line to highlight the matching explanation.
Example chart: cast 1 June 2024, 10:00 (UTC+8) — Tai with the third line moving, changing to Lin. It explains charting without exposing anyone's cast record.
泰 → 临
Click a line, or the palace, moving line and markers chips, to jump to its explanation.
Palace, Shi and Ying
Which palace the hexagram belongs to, and where Shi and Ying land.
Each of the eight palaces has an element; relatives come from comparing each line's element to it. Shi and Ying follow from palace and hexagram order: Tai is the third generation of the Kun palace, so Shi sits on line three and Ying on line six. Neither is scripture — both are coordinates added by the charting layer.
Keep reading →Moving line and changed hexagram
Old yin and old yang move; flipping them gives the changed hexagram.
The primary is the hexagram as cast, moving lines mark where it turns, and the changed hexagram is the result. In the example the third line moves, so Tai (Kun above, Qian below) becomes Lin (Kun above, Dui below). No moving lines means no changed hexagram, and the page says so instead of leaving a gap.
Keep reading →Month and day markers
The month branch of the cast, and the day's stem-branch pair.
Months turn at the solar term (Yin month begins at Start of Spring); days run on a continuous sexagenary count. The example is the Si month, Bing-Shen day — so the six spirits start with the Vermilion Bird on line one. Get these wrong and both the spirits and the strength reading are wrong.
Keep reading →First line
Bottom line: the starting point and foundation.
In the example: Jia-Zi, water, wealth, Vermilion Bird. The stem-branch comes from the lower trigram's Na Jia table, the element from the branch, and the relative from comparing that element with the palace (Kun, earth): earth controls water, so what I control is wealth.
Keep reading →Second line
Usually inner, close-to-home matters.
In the example: Jia-Yin, wood, officer, Hook. Wood controls earth, and what controls me is officer. Check the stem-branch before arguing about the relative — reverse the order and you start treating a charting result as a conclusion.
Keep reading →Third line
End of the lower trigram; the moving line in this example.
In the example: Jia-Chen, earth, brothers, Shi, Coiling Snake — and moving. Shi plus moving makes it conspicuous, but conspicuous is not the same as decisive; what matters is how it stands to the useful spirit.
Keep reading →Fourth line
Into the upper trigram: outer, farther matters.
In the example: Gui-Chou, earth, brothers, White Tiger. The upper trigram Kun takes Yi and Gui, so the stem switches from Jia to Gui and the branch sequence restarts. Change the hexagram and you change the table — the most commonly misremembered step in Liu Yao.
Keep reading →Fifth line
Traditionally the most honoured position.
In the example: Gui-Hai, water, wealth, Black Tortoise. Honoured is a position, not a verdict: it is still measured against the month and day markers, and can still be controlled, combined or clashed.
Keep reading →Sixth line
Top line, end of the hexagram; the Ying line here.
In the example: Gui-You, metal, offspring, Ying, Azure Dragon. Ying stands for the other party or the environment, and together with Shi it forms the coordinate for relationship questions. Here the six positions, stems, relatives and spirits are complete.
Keep reading →Trigrams, relatives, spirits: nineteen words, one line each
These are all the words charting needs. Trigrams give the body, relatives give the category, spirits give the character — stacked on the same line.
19 words
Qian
Three yang, pure yang. Na Jia: Jia and Ren. Head of the eight palaces; reads as firmness that does not bend.
Expand →Kun
Three yin, pure yin. Na Jia: Yi and Gui. With Qian it is one of the two parent hexagrams — the only ones taking two stems.
Expand →Zhen
One yang at the bottom: movement beginning. Na Jia: Geng. Reads as rousing, startling.
Expand →Xun
One yin at the bottom: penetration beginning. Na Jia: Xin. Reads as seeping in, following the grain.
Expand →Kan
One yang in the middle: the pit. Na Jia: Wu. Reads as danger inside flow — and as water itself.
Expand →Li
One yin in the middle: clinging brightness. Na Jia: Ji. Reads as clarity that depends on what it attaches to.
Expand →Gen
One yang on top: stopping. Na Jia: Bing. Reads as a halt, a boundary.
Expand →Dui
One yin on top: opening. Na Jia: Ding. Reads as speech, exchange.
Expand →Parents
The element that generates the palace. Used for documents, elders, property, shelter. A category label — not your actual parents.
Expand →Siblings
Same element as the palace. Used for peers, partners, rivalry, dividing assets. Because it divides, it is often read as consumption in money questions.
Expand →Offspring
What the palace generates. Used for children, subordinates, rest. Since it controls officer, it is also read as the relieving side.
Expand →Wealth
What the palace controls. Used for money, income, what can be obtained. The old name carries “wife”, but the category is wider than the word.
Expand →Officer
What controls the palace. Used for career, position, constraint, illness. The same word reads oppositely for promotion and for pressure.
Expand →Azure Dragon
Starts on line one on Jia and Yi days. Traditionally paired with auspicious matters, but it is character only and never changes the relative.
Expand →Vermilion Bird
Starts on line one on Bing and Ding days. Paired with speech, documents, dispute. The example chart is a Bing day, hence Vermilion Bird on line one.
Expand →Hook
Starts on line one on Wu days. Paired with entanglement, delay, land matters.
Expand →Coiling Snake
Starts on line one on Ji days. Paired with twisting, false alarms, repetition.
Expand →White Tiger
Starts on line one on Geng and Xin days. Paired with severity, injury, decision. The word most often lifted out of context to frighten people.
Expand →Black Tortoise
Starts on line one on Ren and Gui days. Paired with concealment, obscurity, loss.
Expand →The sixty-four hexagrams, in one row
Six coin throws always land on one of these sixty-four. The row follows the received King Wen order, and each number matches its reading, so you can at least name the hexagram before you interpret it.
All 64 hexagrams
Seven words that hold the system up
If you remember seven, remember these; everything else is a combination.
Primary and changed hexagramThe hexagram as cast, and the one left after moving lines flip.
Six tosses give the primary; old yin and old yang move, and flipping them yields the changed hexagram. Together they describe “now” and “after the change” — read one alone and half the movement is missing.
Primary and changed hexagram →Moving lineThe line that changes; where the movement sits.
Three heads is old yang, none is old yin; both move. A moving line is not a synonym for an important line — it marks a point of change, and importance still depends on its relation to the useful spirit and to Shi/Ying.
Moving line →Na JiaStem-branch assignment per line; only then does a line have an element.
Qian takes Jia and Ren, Kun takes Yi and Gui, the other six take one stem each; branches run forward or backward by position. Without it, relatives and strength have nothing to stand on.
Na Jia →Six relativesFive categories derived from the palace element as “self”.
Generates me, same as me, I generate, I control, controls me — parents, siblings, offspring, wealth, officer. Category labels, not verdicts; the same relative can mean opposite things in two questions.
Six relatives →Six spiritsAzure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, Hook, Coiling Snake, White Tiger, Black Tortoise.
Started from the day stem, one per line upward, so the same hexagram on another day carries different spirits. Read them with the day marker, never alone.
Six spirits →Shi and YingShi marks the asker's side, Ying the other party or environment.
Which line carries them follows from palace and hexagram order; neither is a field of the classic. Their generate/control/combine/clash relations are the starting point for relationship questions.
Shi and Ying →Useful spiritThe one line that stands for the matter asked.
Wealth for money, officer for career, parents for documents and elders. This is judgement, not computation: schools pick different lines and therefore disagree about the same hexagram. Any page calling the useful spirit “calculated” is overselling the method.
Useful spirit →
Trigrams and elements: where charting starts
Each of the eight trigrams belongs to one element, and relatives are derived by treating that element as “self”. The diagram places the trigrams; it draws no control lines.
Qian
Heaven, metal. Head of the eight palaces, pure yang.
Qian →Dui
Lake, metal. One yin on top: opening.
Dui →Li
Fire, fire. One yin in the middle: dependent clarity.
Li →Zhen
Thunder, wood. One yang at the bottom: movement begins.
Zhen →Xun
Wind, wood. One yin at the bottom: seeping in.
Xun →Kan
Water, water. One yang in the middle: the pit in the flow.
Kan →Gen
Mountain, earth. One yang on top: stopping.
Gen →Kun
Earth, earth. Pure yin; with Qian a parent hexagram.
Kun →
This explains why relatives are derived: fix the palace element and the five categories follow. It does not explain whether a given hexagram is good or bad — that needs a useful spirit, and that step is not computed.
A reading order that skips no steps
Fix the moment, then cast
The cast moment sets the month and day markers, and the day stem starts the spirits. Casting first and adding the time later is drawing the target after the arrow.
Check the chart before choosing anything
Verify the six rows: did the Na Jia table change with the trigram, are Shi and Ying on the right lines? One wrong assignment skews everything after it.
See where the movement is
Moving lines mark where the hexagram turns. No moving lines is not a missing field — it means this cast has no change layer, only the primary.
Choose the useful spirit — that is judgement
The same matter can be mapped to different lines. Fix the choice before arguing about strength, or you do precise arithmetic on the wrong line.
Only then go back to the text
Open the statement for the line the useful spirit landed on. The chart gives coordinates, the classic gives wording; neither replaces the other.
FAQ
What is Liu Yao?
A method for one specific question: six tosses give a primary hexagram, Na Jia assigns each line a stem-branch, relatives come from the palace element, spirits start from the day stem, and palace order places Shi and Ying. The chart is computed; choosing a useful spirit and judging is not.
Why six tosses?
A hexagram has six lines, tossed bottom to top, three coins each. Three coins give four outcomes — old yin, young yin, young yang, old yang — and the old lines change, producing moving lines and a changed hexagram.
How many times may I cast about one matter?
The tradition says one matter, one cast. Repeated casting removes the reference point for “the situation now” — and on another day the spirits and month branch change, so you get a different chart, not a correction of the first.
Why do two Liu Yao tools disagree?
Usually one of four things: month by solar term or by lunar month, the day turning at 23:00 or at midnight, which school's Na Jia table, and the spirit starting rule. This page prints all four under the result so a difference can be located.
Can Liu Yao predict the future?
Not in any verifiable sense. The tradition describes a matter's structure and situation at this moment; it does not produce testable date-level predictions. This page treats it as a checkable charting method and says so where it stops.
Liu Yao or BaZi?
BaZi charts four pillars from a birth moment and describes long-term structure. Liu Yao addresses one specific matter using the cast moment. One is “how is this person built”, the other “where does this thing stand now”.
Cast first, study second
The calculator prints where the month marker, day marker, Na Jia and spirits came from. Any field you cannot read links straight to the article that explains it.