Influence is the I Ching's primary hexagram for attraction between people — sexual, romantic, or simply the sense that two things belong together. The structure is Lake over Mountain: the young woman above, the young man below.
The structure: Lake over Mountain
Mountain below, lake above. Stillness beneath and openness above — attraction that works because one side is receptive rather than resisting.
The Judgment
Influence. Success. Perseverance furthers. To take a maiden to wife brings good fortune.
The hexagram moves quickly from attraction to commitment. Influence that stays at the level of feeling has not completed its own arc.
The Image
A lake on the mountain: the image of Influence. Thus the superior man encourages people to approach him by his readiness to receive them.
The lines
- Line 1 — Influence shows itself in the big toe. Still too small to move anything.
- Line 2 — Influence shows itself in the calves. Misfortune; tarrying brings good fortune.
- Line 3 — Influence shows itself in the thighs. Holding to that which follows brings humiliation.
- Line 4 — Perseverance brings good fortune. Remorse disappears.
- Line 5 — Influence shows itself in the back of the neck. No remorse.
- Line 6 — Influence shows itself in the jaws, cheeks, and tongue.
The line text walks up the body, and the pattern is the point: the lower the line, the more it is reaction; the higher, the more it is deliberate response. Line 6 ends at the mouth — influence has become persuasion, which is worth watching in any relationship reading.
Why the lake sits on the mountain
Lake above, mountain below — water drawn up over solid rock. The Image reads this as receiving: the superior person keeps an open mind and is influenced by others.
That is the sense in which this hexagram concerns attraction. Influence here is not persuasion but mutual responsiveness, and the text is precise about the difference — the upper lines describe deliberate direction, the lower ones reaction.
In relationship readings, the useful question is where on that sequence the attraction currently sits.
Influence in Liu Yao terms
If you come to this from Liu Yao rather than from the I Ching, the useful parallel is the concept of resonance between lines: what matters is whether a line is answered, not merely whether it is strong. Hexagram 31 is the same idea stated in its most general form.
That is why the text is not simply favourable despite its name. Attraction without response is one of the conditions it describes.