Should Beginners Learn Plum Blossom Numerology (Meihua Yishu) by Starting with Casting or Reading the Hexagram?

Many people pick up a book on Plum Blossom Numerology (Meihua Yishu), flip through a few pages, and get stuck at the same spot: the casting methods run on for a dozen varieties — time-based casting, sound-based casting, character-stroke casting... By the time they finish, their heads are full of numbers and division, and they haven't even reached the interpretation section before they're already lost. This approach basically has the learning order backwards.

Casting Is the Tool; Reading Is the Core

The complete workflow of Plum Blossom Numerology (Meihua Yishu) goes roughly like this: encounter a situation and observe its image → cast to obtain a number → lay out the hexagram → examine the Ti (体, host) and Yong (用, guest) relationship → determine auspiciousness or inauspiciousness. Casting is just one step in that process. Its role is to convert the information of the present moment into a hexagram image, giving the subsequent analysis something to work with.

But casting itself produces no judgment at all. Say you cast "Shan Feng Gu" (Mountain over Wind — Hexagram 18) transforming into "Kun Wei Di" (Pure Earth — Hexagram 2) using a time-based method. If you don't understand the Ti-Yong relationship, don't understand Five Elements (Wu Xing) generation and control, and don't understand how the moving line (dong yao, 动爻) affects the hexagram's situation, those two hexagrams sitting in front of you are nothing but symbols. Casting is the entry ticket; reading is the main performance.

In traditional records, Shao Yong placed much greater emphasis on the ability to "observe things and grasp their image" (guan wu qu xiang, 观物取象) — seeing what is before you and naturally sensing a hexagram, without any deliberate casting at all. That level of mastery is of course advanced, and beginners can't get there right away, but it points in a clear direction: the perceptive ability to read hexagrams is the thing Plum Blossom Numerology (Meihua Yishu) is truly trying to cultivate.

Build a Solid Foundation in Hexagram Basics First

The fundamentals used in hexagram reading overlap heavily with other I Ching branches: the symbolic meanings of the 64 hexagrams, the Five Elements (Wu Xing) attributes of the eight trigrams, the generation and control relationships among the Five Elements (Wu Xing), the distinction between Ti and Yong, and the logic of how a moving line transforms the hexagram. Without fluency in these, it doesn't matter how smoothly you cast — once you have a hexagram in hand, you won't know where to begin.

Concretely, the entry-level stage requires at least the following:

• Memorize the Five Elements (Wu Xing) attributes of the eight trigrams: Qian and Dui are Metal; Zhen and Xun are Wood; Kan is Water; Li is Fire; Gen and Kun are Earth.
• Be able to look at any of the 64 hexagrams and quickly state its basic image — for example, what general situation "Shui Lei Tun" (Water over Thunder — Hexagram 3) represents.
• Understand the Ti-Yong distinction: the querent corresponds to the Ti (host) hexagram; the matter being asked about corresponds to the Yong (guest) hexagram. The generation or control relationship between Ti and Yong is the main axis for determining good or bad outcomes.
• Learn to read the moving line and its transformation: the original hexagram shows the current state; the transformed hexagram shows the direction things are heading. You don't always look only at the original hexagram.

Once this foundation is in place, going back to the casting methods will feel straightforward. Time-based casting simply takes the numbers of the lunar year, month, day, and hour, adds them up, and divides by eight or sixty-four to get the remainder, yielding the upper trigram, lower trigram, and moving line. Sound-based casting counts syllables or strokes; the logic is the same. Something you can sort out in half an hour doesn't need to consume a disproportionate amount of time at the start.

Learn Casting Methods Well Enough to Get the Job Done

Saying "study interpretation first" doesn't mean casting doesn't matter — it just means you don't need an exhaustive command of it. There are many traditional Plum Blossom Numerology (Meihua Yishu) casting methods, but only a handful are regularly used in practice.

Time-based casting is the most common and the easiest to get started with. Take the lunar year, month, day, and hour as numbers, add them, then divide by different values to find the remainder for the upper trigram, lower trigram, and moving line. Different texts have slight variations on the exact steps, but the framework is consistent. Number-based casting (for example, asking someone to name a number off the top of their head) is also widespread and works well when time information isn't available at the casting session.

Character-stroke casting (Ce Zi — Chinese Character Divination) is popular in folk practice, but it has a notable problem: different people counting the strokes of the same character may get different results, and traditional versus simplified forms further affect the numbers. This method is questionable, and I personally don't recommend beginners rely on it — it tends to create confusion.

Pick one casting method, practice it until it's second nature, and being able to reliably arrive at an upper trigram, lower trigram, and moving line is enough. The remaining methods can be filled in gradually after your interpretive skills develop. There's plenty of time for that.

The Most Common Mistake Beginners Make

Spending a large amount of time memorizing casting steps, then feeling like you "know it," only to stare at a hexagram with no idea where to start — this is the most typical struggle when first learning Plum Blossom Numerology (Meihua Yishu).

The reason is simple: casting is a mechanical procedure that can be drilled to fluency through repetition. Reading a hexagram requires drawing on your understanding of hexagram images, your feel for the Five Elements (Wu Xing), and your judgment about the question at hand — things that take time to accumulate. If you polish your casting to a shine from the very beginning without simultaneously building any understanding of hexagram meaning, the two will fall badly out of sync.

A more practical training method is this: take a hexagram at random (you can use hexagram cards or coin casting), regardless of how it was cast, and focus purely on practicing "what can I say about this hexagram?" What is the Ti-Yong relationship? What are the Five Elements (Wu Xing) attributes of the moving line? How do you read the direction of the transformed hexagram? Do this exercise dozens of times, and your sense for interpretation will develop far faster than grinding through casting procedures.

The charm of Plum Blossom Numerology (Meihua Yishu) lies in its being "alive." The same hexagram cast for different questions can lead to completely opposite conclusions. That flexibility comes from your grasp of the question's context during interpretation — not from the precision of your casting method. That is where beginners should invest the bulk of their effort.