Working with clients

On his extremely interesting weblog Allan Lian writes:

Whether you are an amateur or an expert Yi diviner in the East or in the West, perhaps for similar reasons, you may agree that it would be more professional if you perform the entire divination yourself - rather than follow the current practice of a number of Western diviners who ask their clients to do the casting. After all, a paying client may not have the affinity with the Book of Changes and therefore the Yi may not speak. But the Yi may speak to you. If Yi aficionados count among your fee paying clients, they came to you because of your divination skills. If they could cast accurate oracles in the first place, there was no necessity for them to call upon your services.

Therefore it would be more professional, if you perform the entire divination process which will include the casting of yarrow stalks or coins or whatever, for their questions.

This is a very traditional Chinese point of view; to me it shows that Allan is a traditional diviner from the old school, and in a way I envy him for that. There is nothing wrong with letting the diviner do the casting, in fact, if I would go to a diviner in China I would probably expect that he does the casting for me. But personally I take a more Western approach with clients. For my own protection, but also for the benefit of my clients.

I am not a fortuneteller. I do not predict the future, and I will decline questions that start with "will I, shall I, will I get" etc. A client can get advise from me about his current situation, a current problem he is facing, or what caused it all. If I were a fortuneteller it would be okay if I did the casting of the coins, and when I have received the hexagram I could give a monologue about the client's future. But being a Yi consultant involves more than throwing coins. As a consultant you are a channel through which the answer of the Yi is made clear. This does not mean that you have to tell what the answer of the Yi means to the client, it is up to the client to discover that himself, with your help. I maintain the following guidelines for this:

• Let the client throw the coins.
  I believe that the person who asks the question should do the casting. If I would do the casting I would become part of the client's situation, and I don't want that. The client's situation is the client's responsability, he is in control. By letting him do the casting you let him keep that responsability. I know, this is psychology. As a consultant you are also half of a therapist.
  I have a special set of coins for clients: imitations of Qing dynasty coins. My real Qing and Han dynasty coins are too valuable to be used by others than myself.

• Give answers by asking questions.
  Being a consultant does not mean you have to know everything. If you feel you miss essential information that is necessary to link the hexagram to the situation of your client, then just ask for it. Asking questions is a good way of giving answers. You encourage the client to think about his situation, to take a different point of view. Asking questions shows that you are sincerely interested in the client's situation. Keep the dialogue.

• Tell about the hexagram but do not explain it.
  Tell about the trigrams, their qualities and associations, but do not immediately tell the client what they might mean to him or what answer it holds. In most cases the client will find the link between the trigrams and his situation, and tell you about it. That will give you information to elaborate on, and from there you will find other connections. This goes for the lines as well; the position of the moving lines and their relationships can be told about but do not have to be explained. It is up to the client to find the meaning of the hexagram, and you can only help him with that. If the client does not see the link between the trigrams/lines and his situation, then just ask him questions about it: "The trigram Lake tells about joy, the pleasures of life, childlike naivety. Can you tell me how this is important in your current situation?"

• Keep structure in the hexagram and the information you give.
  I always start with telling about the lower trigram, saying that it depicts the client or the client's 'inner world'. The qualities of that trigram give information about the client's attitude or feelings. If the client can relate to that (and that is almost always the case) we move on to the upper trigram, which tells about the client's partner (or other party, if the question is about intimate or work relationships), or how he deals with the outside worlds in general. From there we move on to the moving lines, if there are any.
  No moving lines? The situation is okay. Honestly. If there are no moving lines then the situation is balanced, nothing is wrong, everything is as it should be, the current situation fits perfectly and harmoniously in the current stream of events. The client might not agree with this, after all, why would he be sitting before you if 'everything is okay'? But it is not the situation that makes you feel bad but how you deal with it. A different point of view, created with the assistance of the Yi, can help a lot.
  The more moving lines, the more imbalanced the situation is. Moving lines mean work to do. One moving line is managable, two moving lines is also okay, but three or more moving lines make the situation quite unstable, which means that you are quite far from The Way. With many moving lines I advise the client to stop any current developments if possible, do not take action for now, because any more energy put in to it could make the situation collapse. Reconsider your position and the way it is all going.

• Work with what you know. Do not work with what you do not know.
  Use the Yi in the way you feel comfortable with it. If you are not familiar wit the trigrams, line positions etc. then don't use them. If you hardly work with the text, then don't start working with it just because your client thinks that the Yi is a book and a book must be read. Don't let you force into a situation you will later regret, especially when the client shows some knowledge of the Yi. The next point is also related to this.

• Do not give the client what he wants. Give him what he needs.
  If you can be short in your answer, then keep it short. In many cases a client has the answer he needs in about ten minutes. if that is the case, then stop dragging it any longer, just let the session come to an end. And give the client a discount.

• Maintain the dialogue. A session with the Yi at my house will be 10% Yijing and 90% communication. But the 90% is based on the 10%.

By now you might wonder why you should come to me for a Yi consultation if I let you do all the hard work. Indeed, why should you? If you can do the divination yourself is 500% better than if I would do it for you. If you don't understand the answer I will be obliged to help you with it (for a reasonable fee). The Yi is a do-it-yourself oracle, you don't need anyone to do it for you. Most clients come to me for a maximum of three sessions. After that I don't see them anymore, in most cases because they have purchased the Yi and started working with it, using my books and some tips I gave them during the sessions. This is how it should be.

There is also merit in the traditional way as Allan proposes, but it is not my way. I prefer to take the client on a journey. And give as less consultations as possible.