Hexagram 31, Influence: When the Feeling Stops at the Tongue

Hexagram 31 measures a heart by how far the feeling travels, from the toes up to the cheeks. The highest line is the one that gets criticised. Why is reaching the mouth not enough?

There is a message you sent last month: "let's grab coffee sometime". The reply was "sure". Then nothing. Neither of you named a day.

You meant it when you typed it. The trouble is that the sincerity stopped at your fingertips and went no further.

Today is a Ding Hai day, the 29th of the seventh lunar month, under the officer Full — the officer of putting things into storage, of moving something that is floating into a place that is real. The Book of Changes has one hexagram that measures the exact distance between "said" and "done", and it measures with a very strange ruler.

What does Hexagram 31, Influence, mean?

Hexagram 31 is the thirty-first of the 64 hexagrams. Xian means to feel, to be moved by a person or a matter. The judgement reads: influence brings success; perseverance is favourable; to take a wife brings good fortune. There must be feeling for things to go through, but the feeling has to last before it becomes anything.

A lake above, a mountain below. The commentary says the noble one keeps his heart empty so as to receive others. Put plainly: to be moved by someone, you must keep an empty place ready for them. A place already crowded can take nothing more.

What are the six lines of Hexagram 31 arranged by?

Hexagram 31 arranges its six lines along the body from the bottom up: the big toe, the calves, the thighs, the heart, the back, and at the top the cheeks and tongue. Each line is a place the feeling manages to climb to. The verdict follows the position it reaches, not the intensity of the feeling.

This is where Hexagram 31 parts ways with how we measure a heart today. We ask whether someone loves a lot or a little, whether the resolve is high or low. The old question was different: how far up your body did that stirring actually travel.

Which line of Hexagram 31 is worth remembering?

The top line: influence in the jaws, cheeks and tongue. It is the highest line in the hexagram, and the verdict offers no praise at all. A stirring that climbs only as far as the mouth produces exactly one thing: talk.

Against it stands the second line near the bottom: influence in the calves brings misfortune; to abide brings good fortune. The calves are what twitch before the foot steps. The warning is for a twitch that has not become a step: stirring before the time is wrong, and sitting still is better.

Put the two side by side and the whole hexagram appears: stirring in the calves is fidgeting, stirring in the tongue is talk. What counts sits in the middle, where the heart is. Yesterday's article was about a hexagram named for retreat whose verdict is not bad; today's measures how far the stirring gets.

What is the hour of the stirring heart, and what has it to do with Hexagram 31?

The hour of the stirring heart is the hour the heart truly moves — the moment the question rises by itself, not the moment you sit down meaning to cast. The day of the stirring heart follows the same rule. Hexagram 31 is about that very word: Xian is feeling, the heart being moved.

So the two share one root. Choosing the right hour means casting while the heart is still moving, before it cools into a question asked for form's sake. Wait until tomorrow and the stirring will already have risen to the mouth.

Why does a Full day suit Hexagram 31?

A Full day favours seeking wealth, storing away and making offerings, and warns against weddings. Hexagram 31 goes the other way: its judgement praises marriage outright. They clash on the word wedding and meet on the word storage: both say a stirring has to be put somewhere real if it is to survive.

One more detail belonging to this Ding Hai day: the Hai branch, Water, restrains the Ding stem, Fire. The lower overcomes the upper — big matters cost effort today, small ones still move. Suited to exactly one small thing, not to a list.

So what should you do today?

Open the calendar, pick the one thing you said to someone and never did, and give it an actual hour. It need not be finished today. It only needs to stop floating in your head and take a place in the calendar. That is storage in the sense the officer Full means.

Pick one. Picking three is the old place again: the stirring stops at the tongue, this time at greater length.

Frequently asked questions

Is Hexagram 31 favourable or unfavourable?

Favourable — with a condition: the feeling must be lasting and correct.

What is Hexagram 31 about?

Responsiveness between people, and the distance between being moved and acting.

How do the day and hour of the stirring heart differ?

The day is when the matter troubled you; the hour is when the question surfaced most clearly.

Try it now: Is there something you said but never did? Cast a hexagram at quekinhdich.net to see how far the stirring travels.

*Last updated: 10 September 2026*