隨
suí

17. Following

䷐
Above
兌 duì
The Joyous, Lake
Below
震 zhèn
The Arousing, Thunder

The tri­gram Tui, the Joy­ous, whose at­tribute is glad­ness, is above; Chen, the Arous­ing, which has the at­tribute of move­ment, is below. Joy in move­ment in­duces fol­low­ing. The Joy­ous is the youngest daugh­ter, while the Arous­ing is the el­dest son. An older man­de­fers to a young girl and shows her con­sid­er­a­tion. By this he moves her to fol­low him.

The Judgement

Following has supreme success.
Perseverance furthers. No blame.

In order to ob­tain a fol­low­ing one must first know how to adapt one­self. If a man would rule he must first learn to serve, for only in this way does he se­cure from those below him the joy­ous as­sent that is nec­es­sary if they are to fol­low him. If he has to ob­tain a fol­low­ing by force or cun­ning, by con­spir­a­cy or by cre­at­ing fac­tions, he in­vari­ably arous­es re­sis­tance, which ob­structs will­ing ad­her­ence. But even joy­ous move­ment can lead to evil con­se­quences, hence the added stip­u­la­tion, “Per­se­ver­ance fur­thers”—that is, con­sis­ten­cy in doing right—- to­geth­er with “No blame.” Just as we should not ask oth­ers to fol­low us un­less this con­di­tion is ful­filled, so it is only under this con­di­tion that we can in turn fol­low oth­ers with­out com­ing to harm.

The thought of ob­tain­ing a fol­low­ing through adap­ta­tion to the de­mands of the time is a great and sig­nif­i­cant idea; this is why the ap­pend­ed judg­ment is so fa­vor­able.

The Image

Thunder in the middle of the lake:
The image of following.
Thus the superior man at nightfall
Goes indoors for rest and recuperation.

In the au­tumn elec­tric­i­ty with­draws into the earth again and rests. Here it is the thun­der in the mid­dle of the lake that serves as the image—thun­der in its win­ter rest, not thun­der in mo­tion. The idea of fol­low­ing in the sense of adap­ta­tion to the de­mands of the time grows out of this image. Thun­der in the mid­dle of the lake in­di­cates times of dark­ness and rest. Sim­i­lar­ly, a su­pe­ri­or man, after being tire­less­ly ac­tive all day, al­lows him­self rest and re­cu­per­a­tion at night. No sit­u­a­tion can be­come fa­vor­able until one is able to adapt to it and does not wear him­self out with mis­tak­en re­sis­tance.

The Lines

Nine at the beginning means:
The standard is changing.
Perseverance brings good fortune.
To go out of the door in company
Produces deeds.

There are ex­cep­tion­al con­di­tions in which the re­la­tion be­tween leader and fol­low­ers changes. It is im­plic­it in the idea of fol­low­ing and adap­ta­tion that if one wants to lead oth­ers, one must re­main ac­ces­si­ble and re­spon­sive to the views of those under him. At the same time, how­ev­er, he must have firm prin­ci­ples, so that he does not vac­il­late where there is only a ques­tion of cur­rent opin­ion. Once we are ready to lis­ten to the opin­ions of oth­ers, we must not as­soc­iate ex­clu­sive­ly with peo­ple who share our views or with mem­bers of our own party; in­stead, we must go out and min­gle freely with all sorts of peo­ple, friends or foes. That is the only way to achieve some­thing.

Six in the second place means:
If one clings to the little boy,
One loses the strong man.

In friend­ships and close re­la­tion­ships an in­di­vid­ual must make a care­ful choice. He sur­rounds him­self ei­ther with good or with bad com­pa­ny; he can­not have both at once. If he throws him­self away on un­wor­thy friends he loses con­nec­tion with peo­ple of in­tel­lec­tu­al power who could fur­ther him in the good.

Six in the third place means:
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.

When the right con­nec­tion with dis­tin­guished peo­ple has been found, a cer­tain loss nat­u­ral­ly en­sues. A man must part com­pa­ny with the in­fe­ri­or and su­per­fi­cial. But in his heart he will feel sat­is­fied, be­cause he will find what he seeks and needs for the de­vel­op­ment of his per­son­al­i­ty. The im­por­tant thing is to re­main firm. He must know what he wants and not be led astray by mo­men­tary in­cli­na­tions.

Nine in the fourth place means:
Following creates success.
Perseverance brings misfortune.
To go one’s way with sincerity brings clarity.
How could there be blame in this?

It often hap­pens, when a man ex­erts a cer­tain amount of in­flu­ence, that he ob­tains a fol­low­ing by con­de­scen­sion to­ward in­fe­ri­ors. But the peo­ple who at­tach them­selves to him are not hon­est in their in­ten­tions. They seek per­son­al ad­van­tage and try to make them­selves in­dis­pens­able through flat­tery and sub­servience. If one be­comes ac­cus­tomed to such satel­lites and can­not do with­out them, it brings mis­for­tune. Only when a man is com­plete­ly free from his ego, and in­tent, by con­vic­tion, upon what is right and es­sen­tial, does he ac­quire the clar­i­ty that en­ables him to see through such peo­ple, and be­come free of blame.

Nine in the fifth place means:
Sincere in the good. Good fortune.

Every man must have some­thing he fol­lows—some­thing that serves him as a lodestar. He who fol­lows with con­vic­tion the beau­ti­ful and the good may feel him­self strength­ened by this say­ing.

Six at the top means:
He meets with firm allegiance
And is still further bound.
The king introduces him
To the Western Mountain.

This refers to a man, an ex­alt­ed sage, who has al­ready put the tur­moil of the world be­hind him. But a fol­low­er ap­pears who un­der­stands him and is not to be put off. So the sage comes back into the world and aids the other in his work. Thus there de­vel­ops an eter­nal tie be­tween the two.

The al­le­go­ry is cho­sen from the an­nals of the Chou dy­nasty. The rulers of this dy­nasty hon­ored men who had served them well by award­ing them a place in the royal fam­i­ly’s tem­ple of an­ces­tors on the West­ern Moun­tain. In this way they were re­gard­ed as shar­ing in the des­tiny of the rul­ing fam­i­ly.