I Ching Hexagram 17: Following - Meaning, Changing Lines and Guidance

I Ching hexagram 17, Sui or Following, is Lake above Thunder, and its Judgement reads: Following has supreme success. Perseverance furthers. No blame. Hexagram 17 describes the time when the right move is to attach yourself to something already in motion rather than start something of your own, and its six changing lines each test what you are attaching to.

What does I Ching hexagram 17, Following, mean?

I Ching hexagram 17, called Sui and usually translated Following, means the time has come to go along with something rather than start it. The Judgement reads: Following has supreme success. Perseverance furthers. No blame. Those first four Chinese words, yuan heng li zhen, are the same formula that opens Hexagram 1, the Creative, and their presence in Following signals that adaptation is not a lesser path but a complete one. The character sui is built on the road radical and carries the sense of moving along behind someone. Hexagram 17 meaning runs in two directions at once: you follow, and you are followed, and the text treats both as the same skill. The King Wen sequence places Following straight after Hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, and the Xu Gua commentary explains the order plainly: where there is enthusiasm there is certain to be following. Something has stirred people, and the live question is what they will attach themselves to. In a divination, i ching following is taken as approval for joining, serving, or falling in behind a movement already underway. One condition rides along: what you follow has to be worth following, and you are expected to keep checking that it still is.

The clause that makes hexagram 17 workable is the last one, wu jiu, no blame. Following carries an obvious hazard, since a follower can be blamed for wherever the leader ends up, and the text answers that objection in advance. Blame is avoided when the following is done with zhen, which here means keeping your own standard intact while walking behind someone else. The Tuan commentary widens the point past personalities altogether: the whole world follows the time, and the meaning of the time of Following is great indeed. On that reading, what you are asked to follow is less a person than a moment. This is why hexagram 17 rarely reads as surrender. Readers who receive Following while asking about a job, a teacher, or a partner are being told the correct action is available and belongs to someone else, and that stepping into it costs them nothing. James Legge translated the name as Following in his 1882 English version of the Yi King, and Richard Wilhelm's edition, brought into English by Cary F. Baynes, kept the same word, which is why Following is the name almost every English commentary uses for hexagram 17.

Is I Ching hexagram 17 a good hexagram to receive?

Hexagram 17 is one of the more favorable hexagrams to receive. Its Judgement carries the full four-word formula yuan heng li zhen plus wu jiu, no blame, which is an unusually strong opening. The favor is conditional rather than automatic: hexagram 17 promises success to the person who adapts and stays steady, not to the person who insists on their own direction.

What does the name Sui mean in hexagram 17?

Sui, the Chinese name of hexagram 17, means to follow, to go along with, or to accompany, and the character is written with the road radical that indicates movement. The name covers both senses in the hexagram: following after someone on the road, and complying with circumstances. English editions render it Following, and some prefer According With or Allegiance.

Why does hexagram 17, Following, come after hexagram 16 in the King Wen sequence?

Hexagram 17 follows Hexagram 16, Enthusiasm, because the Xu Gua commentary reasons that enthusiasm produces followers. Once a mood has been aroused, the question of what people will attach themselves to follows immediately. Hexagram 16 supplies the energy and hexagram 17 the direction it runs in, which is why the two are read as consecutive stages.

Which two trigrams form hexagram 17, and why does Lake over Thunder mean Following?

Hexagram 17 is formed by Dui, the Joyous, Lake, in the upper position and Zhen, the Arousing, Thunder, in the lower position, making it the lake over thunder hexagram. Reading from the bottom, the six lines run yang, yin, yin, yang, yang, yin. The meaning comes out of the arrangement rather than the trigrams taken separately. Thunder is the initiating force, the shock that starts things, and in hexagram 17 it sits underneath the still water of a lake. The strong has placed itself below the weak. In the family symbolism attached to the eight trigrams, Zhen is the eldest son and Dui is the youngest daughter, so hexagram 17 shows the senior figure deferring to the junior one, which no rule of precedence requires and which is exactly why it produces following. The inner attribute of Zhen is movement and that of Dui is joy, so the combination reads as motion people are happy to be part of. Neither trigram alone carries the idea. Lake over Thunder means Following because someone with the power to lead has voluntarily gone underneath, and voluntary deference is what makes other people willing to come along.

The image also works seasonally, and Wilhelm's commentary leans on this. Thunder belongs to spring, when it rises out of the earth and sets the year in motion, but in hexagram 17 it has sunk into the lake, which is what late autumn looks like: storm energy withdrawing under still water for the winter. Thunder in the lake is thunder that has followed the season instead of arguing with it, and that gives hexagram 17 its calm rather than passive quality. In a reading, the trigram pair is the fastest way into hexagram 17 meaning: ask which side the querent is on. Holding the Zhen position, the force that could push, the instruction is to go under and let the joy of the situation lead. Holding the Dui position, the instruction is to notice the power that has placed itself below and not mistake it for weakness. Both readings assume the strong line at the bottom of hexagram 17 is a decision and not a defeat.

What is the line pattern of hexagram 17?

The line pattern of hexagram 17 runs, from the bottom line up, yang, yin, yin, yang, yang, yin. That gives Zhen, Thunder, as the lower trigram and Dui, Lake, as the upper trigram. Three lines are yang and three yin, and the central second and fifth positions are correctly occupied by a yin and a yang line.

What does the Dui trigram contribute to hexagram 17?

Dui, the Joyous, Lake, supplies the upper trigram of hexagram 17 and gives Following its pleasure and its openness. Dui is the trigram of the mouth, of speech, of satisfaction, and of the youngest daughter. In hexagram 17 it means the thing being followed is attractive rather than compulsory, which is what separates Following from obedience under force.

What does the Zhen trigram contribute to hexagram 17?

Zhen, the Arousing, Thunder, supplies the lower trigram of hexagram 17 and gives Following its movement and its initiating power. Zhen is the eldest son, the shock that starts a cycle. Placed at the bottom of hexagram 17, it means the energy capable of leading has taken the lower position on purpose, and that choice is the mechanism the hexagram describes.

What does the Judgement of hexagram 17 say and how is it read?

The Judgement of hexagram 17 reads: Following has supreme success. Perseverance furthers. No blame. The Chinese is yuan heng li zhen, wu jiu. Each of the four qualities carries its own weight. Yuan is the originating or sublime quality, the source of a thing. Heng is success in the sense of things going through without obstruction, and it carries the older sense of an offering accepted. Li means furthering or advantageous. Zhen means perseverance, and in the older layer of the text also the steadfast inquiry itself. Only a small group of hexagrams carry all four, Hexagram 1, the Creative, and Hexagram 49, Revolution, among them. Following belongs to that group, which is why commentators refuse to read hexagram 17 as mere compliance. What the Judgement withholds is as informative as what it grants. Hexagram 17 does not say it furthers one to cross the great water. There is no expedition in this hexagram, no crossing, no campaign. i ching following is about attachment and direction, not about launching out, and readers who take hexagram 17 as encouragement for a bold departure have read a phrase into it that the text does not contain.

The Tuan commentary explains why the Judgement is so favorable by pointing at the structure: the strong comes and places itself under the weak, movement joined with joy, and that is Following. Everything positive in the Judgement rests on that voluntary descent, and without it the same situation becomes flattery. Perseverance furthers, li zhen, is the working restraint. Following without zhen drifts, and drifting is how a person ends up inside a faction or a relationship they never chose. With zhen, the follower keeps a standard that can be consulted, which means they can also stop following when the standard is broken. Practitioners put this to a querent as one question: what would have to happen for you to stop? A person who can answer is following in the sense hexagram 17 means. A person who cannot is merely attached, which is what hexagram 18 describes once it has gone bad. The wu jiu at the end, no blame, is granted on those terms rather than unconditionally.

What does no blame mean in the Judgement of hexagram 17?

No blame, wu jiu, in the Judgement of hexagram 17 means the follower does not carry fault for the position they have taken. The phrase pre-empts the obvious objection, that a follower answers for where the leader goes. Hexagram 17 grants the release on condition of perseverance, so the person keeps their own standard while walking behind someone else.

Does the Judgement of hexagram 17 promise success?

The Judgement of hexagram 17 promises supreme success, translating yuan heng, but attaches li zhen, perseverance furthers, as the term. The success described is the success of a situation that flows through without obstruction because the person has stopped pushing against it. It is not a promise that any following will work out, since hexagram 17 assumes what is followed is worth following.

What does perseverance furthers ask of the person following hexagram 17?

Perseverance furthers, li zhen, asks the follower in hexagram 17 to hold a standard of their own while adapting to someone else's course. In practice that means staying with the commitment through dull stretches, and knowing in advance what would make you leave. Hexagram 17 treats an unconditional following as a failure of zhen rather than as loyalty.

What is the Image of hexagram 17 and what does going indoors at nightfall mean?

The Image of hexagram 17 reads: Thunder in the middle of the lake, the image of Following. Thus the superior man at nightfall goes indoors for rest and recuperation. The Chinese phrase is xiang hui ru yan xi, turning toward the dark and entering into ease and rest. It is one of the most unusual of the sixty-four Images, since nearly all the others tell the junzi to do something outward and hexagram 17 tells them to go to bed. The logic follows the trigram picture exactly. Thunder has withdrawn into the lake because the season asked it to, and the person who understands Following does the same at the end of a day, stopping because the hour says stop rather than because the work is finished. The instruction is obedience to timing, and rest is simply the most ordinary form that obedience takes. Readers who receive hexagram 17 about an overworked project usually get this line quoted back, because the Image supplies what the Judgement does not: a physical practice. Following, in the Image of hexagram 17, is trained daily by letting the natural rhythm of light and dark, activity and stopping, be the thing you follow before you follow any person.

The contrast with Hexagram 1 makes hexagram 17's Image sharper. In the Creative, the Image tells the superior man to make himself strong and untiring, ceaseless in the way heaven is ceaseless. Hexagram 17 says the reverse, and the two are not in conflict, they are timed differently. The Creative describes the moment when your own force is the correct instrument. Following describes the moment when it is not, and in that moment continuing to be untiring is a misreading of the situation. A second use of the Image applies to leaders rather than followers. A person who cannot stop is hard to follow, since their pace is a demand nobody can meet, and hexagram 17 puts rest inside the definition of a figure others willingly go behind. The word yan in yan xi carries the sense of a feast or of comfortable ease, so the rest recommended by hexagram 17 is not a collapse into exhaustion but a deliberate withdrawal into enjoyment, which matches the Dui trigram sitting on top.

Why does the Image of hexagram 17 tell the superior man to rest?

The Image of hexagram 17 tells the superior man to rest at nightfall because rest is the plainest daily instance of following. Thunder in the lake is energy that went under because the season required it, and stopping when the day ends is the same act on a human scale. Hexagram 17 treats that habit as training for larger acts of following.

How is the Image of hexagram 17 different from the Image of hexagram 1?

The Image of Hexagram 1, the Creative, tells the superior man to make himself strong and untiring, while the Image of hexagram 17 tells him to go indoors at nightfall and rest. They describe opposite postures for opposite times: Hexagram 1 for the moment when your own force is the right instrument, hexagram 17 for the moment when yielding to a rhythm is.

What practical advice do readers take from the Image of hexagram 17?

Readers take the Image of hexagram 17 as a direct instruction to stop pushing on a schedule that is not yours to set. In a work question that means ending the day at a set hour, and in a health question it means treating rest as part of the plan. The Image gives hexagram 17 a physical practice the Judgement leaves unstated.

What do the first three changing lines of hexagram 17 mean?

The first three hexagram 17 changing lines all deal with a single problem: what a person attaches themselves to and what that attachment costs. Nine at the beginning reads: The standard is changing. Perseverance brings good fortune. To go out of the door in company produces deeds. The Chinese guan you yu says the fixed standard has altered, so hexagram 17 opens by admitting that allegiance shifts and calling that legitimate. The instruction is to take the change outdoors rather than nurse it privately. Six in the second reads: If one clings to the little boy, one loses the strong man. This yin line sits directly above the strong line at the bottom and is drawn to what is nearest, while its proper correspondent is the ruling line in the fifth place further up. Six in the third reads: If one clings to the strong man, one loses the little boy. Through following one finds what one seeks. It furthers one to remain persevering. The third line leans upward toward the strong line in the fourth and gets what it wants, and the caution about steadfastness follows because what it gained was gained through attachment.

Lines two and three of hexagram 17 are a matched pair and are best read together, because they are the same choice seen from either side. Both are weak lines, both are defined entirely by whom they hold onto, and neither can hold both options. The little boy is the young strong line at the bottom of hexagram 17, close and available, and the strong man is the mature yang above, further off and more consequential. What is striking is that the text does not moralize the choice. It states the cost and stops. In a reading, the pair shows up whenever a querent wants two allegiances running at once, a new opportunity and an old loyalty, and hexagram 17 gives them the arithmetic rather than the answer. Nine at the beginning governs the door for all three lines. Its advice to go out and mix is what keeps a change of allegiance honest, since a shift worked out in private tends to become a grievance, while a shift carried into company becomes, in the words of the line, deeds.

What does nine at the beginning of hexagram 17 mean?

Nine at the beginning of hexagram 17 reads that the standard is changing, perseverance brings good fortune, and going out of the door in company produces deeds. It sanctions a shift in allegiance or in the rule you have been living by, on two conditions: hold steady while the shift happens, and take it outward into contact with other people instead of working it out alone.

Who are the little boy and the strong man in hexagram 17?

In hexagram 17 the little boy is the young yang line at the bottom of the hexagram, near at hand and easy to attach to, and the strong man is the mature yang above in the fourth and fifth places. The second line clings to the little boy and loses the strong man, the third does the reverse, and neither weak line can hold both.

What does six in the third place of hexagram 17 advise?

Six in the third place of hexagram 17 says that clinging to the strong man loses the little boy, that through following one finds what one seeks, and that it furthers one to remain persevering. The line gets what it wanted by attaching upward, and the caution is aimed at that success: what was gained through attachment can be lost the same way.

What do changing lines four, five and six of hexagram 17 mean?

The upper three hexagram 17 changing lines shift the subject from the follower to the followed. Nine in the fourth reads: Following creates success. Perseverance brings misfortune. To go one's way with sincerity brings clarity. How could there be blame in this? This is the one place in hexagram 17 where zhen, the perseverance the Judgement praises, brings misfortune, because the fourth line has gathered a following of its own while standing next to the ruler in the fifth place. The remedy is fu, sincerity, kept openly on the road. Nine in the fifth reads: Sincere in the good. Good fortune. Four characters, fu yu jia, with no warning attached. This line is yang in a yang place, central in the upper trigram, and paired with the yin line in the second place, so hexagram 17 puts its cleanest statement in its strongest position. Six at the top reads: He meets with firm allegiance and is still further bound. The king introduces him to the Western Mountain. The follower is held twice over and then brought into a sacred setting, which turns a personal attachment into a formal one.

The reversal at the fourth line is the sharpest thing in hexagram 17, and it is deliberate. The Judgement addresses the person doing the following and tells them perseverance furthers. Line four addresses the person who has acquired followers while serving someone else, and tells them perseverance brings misfortune, because holding firm there means keeping a power base that competes with the ruler above. Sincerity in the open is the way out, and the line closes by asking how there could be blame, which restates the hexagram's own wu jiu at close range. The top line has carried two readings for centuries. The Western Mountain is traditionally taken as Mount Qi, the ancestral seat of the Zhou house where its kings offered sacrifice, so being introduced there is an honor, the loyal follower brought inside the sanctuary. The same words also describe being bound and led, and translators who prefer the older divinatory layer read a captive taken to the mountain. Hexagram 17 ends on that double edge: total allegiance is either consecration or capture, and the line does not choose for you.

Why does perseverance bring misfortune in the fourth line of hexagram 17?

Perseverance brings misfortune at nine in the fourth of hexagram 17 because the line has gathered its own following while standing directly beneath the ruler in the fifth place. Holding firm there means keeping a rival power base. Sincerity kept in the open on the road is the correction, letting the fourth line keep its influence without becoming a threat.

What does sincere in the good mean in the fifth line of hexagram 17?

Sincere in the good, fu yu jia, at nine in the fifth of hexagram 17 means placing your trust in what is genuinely excellent rather than in a person, a mood, or an advantage. It is the only line in hexagram 17 with no warning clause, since a following aimed at the good cannot be misled by the character of whoever is leading. Good fortune follows directly.

What is the Western Mountain in the top line of hexagram 17?

The Western Mountain in six at the top of hexagram 17 is traditionally identified with Mount Qi, the ancestral home of the Zhou house, where its kings made offerings. Being introduced there by the king reads as a follower bound so completely the bond is made sacred. Some translators read a captive brought to the mountain instead, and hexagram 17 leaves both senses standing.

What are the nuclear and opposite hexagrams of hexagram 17?

The nuclear hexagram of hexagram 17 is Hexagram 53, Development or Gradual Progress, and the opposite hexagram is Hexagram 18, Work on What Has Been Spoiled. The nuclear figure is built from the inner lines: positions two, three and four of hexagram 17 give yin, yin, yang, which is Gen, Mountain, and positions three, four and five give yin, yang, yang, which is Xun, Wind. Wind over Mountain is Hexagram 53. That tells you what Following is made of inside, and it is not sudden conversion. Hexagram 53 is the tree taking hold on a mountainside and the stages that cannot be skipped, so the hidden core of hexagram 17 is slow, staged growth. The opposite comes from reversing every line: yang becomes yin throughout and the result is Mountain over Wind, Hexagram 18, whose name gu is written with worms in a vessel and means spoilage that has set in while nobody was watching. Hexagram 17 has a structural peculiarity here. Turn the whole figure upside down and you also get Hexagram 18, so its inversion and its complement land on the same hexagram, which is true of only a few figures in the sequence.

Practitioners use both relatives when hexagram 17 arrives. Hexagram 53 governs the pace: if you expect a quick payoff, the nuclear figure says it runs in stages, the way the wild goose in Hexagram 53 moves shore by shore, and impatience is how people abandon a good following too early. Hexagram 18 governs the risk. What decays into gu is a following nobody re-examined, an inherited allegiance or a job held out of habit, and the Xu Gua makes it explicit: one who follows another is certain to have work to do, which is why Hexagram 18 comes next. That places hexagram 17 and hexagram 18 side by side as one chapter rather than two hexagrams. Following done with zhen stays healthy. Following continued past its usefulness turns into the repair job of Hexagram 18, and reading hexagram 17 with its neighbor in view is what keeps the difference visible.

How do you find the nuclear hexagram of hexagram 17?

The nuclear hexagram of hexagram 17 is found by taking lines two, three and four as a new lower trigram and lines three, four and five as a new upper trigram. In hexagram 17 that gives Gen, Mountain, below and Xun, Wind, above, which is Hexagram 53, Development. The outer first and sixth lines are dropped, so the nuclear figure shows the situation stripped of its visible surface.

What does Hexagram 53 tell you about hexagram 17?

Hexagram 53, Development, sits inside hexagram 17 as its nuclear figure and sets the tempo. It says the following described by hexagram 17 grows in stages that cannot be hurried or skipped, like a tree rooting on a mountain. Readers use it to answer the impatience question: a good following that has not paid off yet is usually early rather than wrong.

Why is hexagram 18 the opposite of hexagram 17?

Hexagram 18, Work on What Has Been Spoiled, is the opposite of hexagram 17 because reversing every line of Lake over Thunder produces Mountain over Wind. Hexagram 17 is also unusual in that turning it upside down gives Hexagram 18 as well. Their meanings pair the same way: healthy attachment in hexagram 17, and in Hexagram 18 an attachment left unexamined until it spoiled.

How does hexagram 17 read for a decision, a relationship and work?

Hexagram 17 reads differently in each of those three settings, though the instruction underneath is the same. For a decision, hexagram 17 says stop trying to originate the answer, find the current already running, and decide whether you can attach to it with a clear standard. Following reframes the question from which option should I invent into which movement do I join. For a relationship, the trigram arrangement does the work: Thunder, the eldest son, has gone beneath Lake, the youngest daughter, so whoever holds more power in the pairing is the one being asked to yield first. i ching following in a relationship question rarely means the weaker party should submit, and often means the stronger one should adapt to a rhythm that is not theirs. For work, hexagram 17 supports joining, apprenticing, and aligning with a direction already set, and supports leading only in the manner the hexagram describes, by adapting to the people you want behind you rather than issuing a pace. The fourth line is the one to watch in any work question, since it covers the person who has built their own following inside someone else's organization.

The most common misreading of hexagram 17 is to take Following as permission to go passive and let events decide. Nothing in the hexagram supports that. The strong line at the bottom placed itself under the weak by choice, the Judgement attaches perseverance as a term, and the fourth line punishes the person who simply holds their position. Following in hexagram 17 is active work: choosing what to follow, adapting to it, and continuing to test it. Two practical checks come out of this. First, name the thing. A querent who cannot say in one sentence what they are following has usually received hexagram 17 about drift rather than allegiance. Second, watch the second hexagram when lines are moving, since Following is about direction rather than position and where it changes to shows where the current runs. A reading of hexagram 17 that identifies the current and names the standard has done everything the hexagram asks.

What does hexagram 17 advise when you are making a decision?

For a decision, hexagram 17 advises finding the movement already underway and deciding whether to join it, rather than trying to originate a course of your own. Following treats the correct action as something that exists and belongs to someone else. Before committing, hexagram 17 expects you to name the standard that would tell you when to stop following.

What does hexagram 17 mean for a relationship question?

For a relationship question, hexagram 17 puts the burden of adapting on the stronger party, because its lower trigram Thunder, the eldest son, has taken the position beneath Lake, the youngest daughter. It describes a bond held by willing deference rather than rules, and the second and third lines warn that holding two attachments at once costs you one of them.

What does hexagram 17 say about work and career?

For work and career, hexagram 17 favors joining, apprenticing, serving under a good leader, and aligning with a direction someone else has set. It reads well for accepting a role inside an existing structure and poorly for launching alone. The fourth line adds the caution: an employee who has built a personal following inside the organization should keep everything open.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Judgement of I Ching hexagram 17?

The Judgement of I Ching hexagram 17 reads: Following has supreme success. Perseverance furthers. No blame. In Chinese it is six characters, yuan heng li zhen, wu jiu. The first four are the formula that opens Hexagram 1, the Creative, and wu jiu attaches a release from blame. Together they say that adapting to what is already moving can carry the highest kind of success, provided the follower stays steady and keeps their own standard while following.

Is hexagram 17, Following, a yes or no answer?

Hexagram 17, Following, reads as a conditional yes. The condition is that the yes belongs to joining, aligning, serving, or going along with a course already set by someone or something else, not to launching your own initiative. If the question was whether to lead the charge, hexagram 17 answers no in that form and yes in another: go where the movement already is.

What does I Ching hexagram 17 mean in a love reading?

In a love reading, hexagram 17 points to a relationship where the stronger or more established partner is being asked to yield first, since the hexagram places Thunder, the eldest son, beneath Lake, the youngest daughter. Following here means adapting to the other person's rhythm. The second and third lines warn about the cost of clinging: attaching to the nearest option loses the deeper one.

Which changing line of hexagram 17 is the most favorable?

Nine in the fifth place is the most favorable of the hexagram 17 changing lines. Its text is only four characters, fu yu jia, rendered as sincere in the good, good fortune. The line is yang in a yang place, central in the upper trigram, and paired with the yin line in the second place, so it carries no warning clause. It describes following what is genuinely good rather than following a person.

What is the difference between hexagram 17 and hexagram 18 in the I Ching?

Hexagram 17, Following, and Hexagram 18, Work on What Has Been Spoiled, are the two halves of one situation. Hexagram 17 is Lake over Thunder and describes healthy attachment to something in motion. Hexagram 18 is Mountain over Wind and describes what attachment becomes once it stops being examined: stagnation that has to be cleaned up. Turning hexagram 17 upside down gives hexagram 18, and so does reversing every line.

What does hexagram 17 mean with no changing lines?

Hexagram 17 received with no changing lines describes a settled situation rather than a shifting one, so the whole reading rests on the Judgement and the Image. The instruction is to keep following the course you are on, hold your own standard while you do it, and rest at nightfall as the Image says. Without moving lines there is no second hexagram, so no change of direction is signalled.

What does the name Sui mean and how else is hexagram 17 translated?

The name of hexagram 17 is sui, written with a character built on the road radical carrying the sense of going along behind. James Legge rendered it Following in his 1882 English version of the Yi King, and the Wilhelm edition uses the same word. Other translators have used According With, Compliance, Conforming, and Allegiance, and each catches a different side of the hexagram, from matching a rhythm to binding yourself to a cause.