Persuasion That Reaches Only the People Already Persuaded

Nine in the fourth place is the hexagram's most practical line about influence and it is addressed to somebody trying to move others. The good fortune is conditional and the condition comes first: be firm and correct, and there will be no cause for regret. What happens in the absence of that steadiness is described precisely rather than punished. The person's thoughts go back and forth, and the only people who follow are friends, meaning those whose agreement was never in question.

That is the recognisable failure the line warns against. A wavering position gathers an audience of the already convinced and nobody else, and the commentary makes plain that such influence is neither brilliant nor great. Nothing has gone wrong yet, which is the other half of the reading: the situation remains open, and the wish to influence has so far done no damage to anyone.

When the line changes, the upper trigram Dui becomes Kan and the figure becomes Obstruction, King Wen 39, water above the mountain and a road that will not open. The transformation names the consequence of leaving the wavering unresolved. An influence that never settles into a firm position does not merely fail to spread. It hardens into the kind of situation the classic advises turning back from in order to work on oneself instead.