Hexagram 17 · Following (隨 Suí)
Lake ☱ over Thunder ☳
Thunder sunk within the lake · joyful movement that is followed
Following is the hexagram of moving in step with the time, and of the subtle art of leadership that begins with knowing how to follow. Thunder, the arousing, has sunk down inside the Lake, the joyous; movement rests within gladness. The image is of someone others want to follow precisely because they themselves know how to yield to what is right. This is not blind obedience. It is the wisdom of adapting to the moment without losing your principles.
Lake sits above, open and joyous; Thunder sits below, the impulse to move. The commentary makes a deceptively profound point: to be a leader worth following, you must first learn how to follow. True following is given freely, never commanded, and you earn it by your own willingness to adapt and to put yourself in step with what the situation genuinely needs. The Image even counsels rest and renewal when the day's work is done, moving with the natural turn of things rather than against it.
What this hexagram counsels in a reading
When Sui answers your question, this is a time of adapting and aligning rather than imposing. The counsel is to follow what is genuinely sound, to earn others' trust by your own readiness to yield where yielding is wise, and to meet the moment on its terms. The hexagram is not telling you to be a pushover; it is telling you that flexibility and good timing are your strength right now. Adapt to the current, and people will follow you through it.
Why Following sits directly after Enthusiasm
The order of the sixty-four is not arbitrary, and one of the appendices, the Xugua or Sequence of the Hexagrams, walks the whole book explaining each handover in a clause or two. Sui gets four characters, one of them a modal verb.
豫必有隨，故受之以隨。
Where there is Enthusiasm there must be Following, so it is received by Sui.
Sequence of the Hexagrams. Source: Chinese Wikisource.
必 is must, necessarily, cannot be otherwise. The wing is not recommending Sui as a virtue that follows nicely on from Yu. It is saying that a stirring produces followers whether or not anybody intended it, the way thunder produces an echo. Following, in this account, is not a choice anyone in it made.
The judgment then hands over the book’s highest formula and adds something odd at the end:
隨：元亨。利貞。无咎。
Sui: supreme success. Furthering through steadfastness. No blame.
元亨利貞 is the four-part formula that opens Qian, the strongest thing this book says about a situation. And then, having said it, Sui appends 无咎. Nothing about supreme success obviously needs absolving. The reassurance is there anyway, before a single line has been read.
The lines say why. The two in the lower half are written as an exact swap:
六二：系小子，失丈夫。
六三：系丈夫，失小子。
Six in the second place: he ties himself to the boy and loses the grown man.
Six in the third place: he ties himself to the grown man and loses the boy.
No verdict is attached to the second line at all — no good fortune, no misfortune, nothing. Just the transaction. Whichever way round you do it, the text books the attachment and the loss in the same breath, and declines to tell you which pairing was the mistake.
Then the line where following starts to pay, and the ruling turns:
九四：隨有獲，貞凶。有孚在道，以明，何咎。
Nine in the fourth place: in following there is a catch. Steadfastness: misfortune. There is good faith on the road; through clarity, what blame?
獲 is the word for taking game, a bag, spoils. The moment following produces a return for the follower, the hexagram stops approving of persistence in it — 貞凶, the same construction Tai uses at the collapse of the wall. What rescues the line is not giving the catch back. It is 有孚在道, good faith kept out in the open on the road, and 明, being seen clearly.
And then the last line, which is where a hexagram usually softens or turns:
上六：拘系之，乃從維之。王用亨于西山。
Six at the top: he is seized and bound, then further roped and made fast. The king makes his offering at the western mountain.
Three separate words for tying in the first six characters — 拘 to seize and hold, 系 to tie, 維 the cord that secures. Then a royal sacrifice on a mountain in the west. Whether the man in the ropes is a follower held fast at the end of his loyalty or a captive brought to the rite, the received text does not say, and both readings are in print.
The Zagua wing sums the hexagram up in four characters: 隨无故也. 故 is read as what is old and as a reason, so the line comes out either as Following keeps nothing of the past, or as Following has no cause of its own. The two glosses land in the same uncomfortable place, and the sequence’s 必 looks different once you have read to the end: enthusiasm necessarily produces following, and following ends with someone tied up.
Judgment and line texts follow the copy at Chinese Wikisource, which prints the binding verb as 系 where many editions print 係; the two are the same word. The Sequence and Zagua clauses are at Xugua and Zagua on the same site. The English is a plain rendering kept close to the Chinese. The remainder of the third line is punctuated inconsistently across editions — 隨有求得，利居貞 and 隨，有求得利，居貞 both circulate — so only its first clause is rendered above. 西山 is commonly identified with the Zhou homeland in the west; the text itself gives only the direction.
In love and relationships
For relationships, Following favours flexibility, give-and-take, and the willingness to move with a partner rather than always insisting on your own course. It is a harmonious sign that rewards mutual adaptation. The counsel is to follow what is good in the relationship and to let yourself be led at times, trusting that this kind of generous flexibility builds the very trust that makes a bond strong. Rigidity is what this hexagram warns against.
In work and money
In work, Sui favours adapting to changing conditions, aligning with sound leadership, and earning influence by your willingness to move with the times. Read the moment and follow what is genuinely right rather than clinging to a fixed plan. With money, it counsels flexibility and good timing, following the favourable current rather than fighting it, while keeping your principles intact.
Moving lines and the changing hexagram
The moving lines of Following describe the choices involved in following well, from a change in allegiance that proves sound, to the danger of clinging to the small and losing the great, to sincerity that holds firm at the centre. A changing line here usually comments on what or whom you are following, and whether it is worthy. Read it as guidance on your alliances and your adaptability. The hexagram it becomes shows where following the current leads next.
Its Tarot kin
On the deck side of this site, Following rhymes with Wheel of Fortune. Both turn on moving in time with change, going with the turn rather than against it. The Wheel asks you to flow with the cycle as it rises and falls; Sui is that same supple alignment, the wisdom of following the moment to where it wants to go.
Cast the coins and you might draw this one — try the I Ching tool, or see all sixty-four on the full hexagram grid. For reflection and insight, not fortune-telling — see our disclaimer.