Yang-Yin-Rén-Rén
The yang breath has something it waits on.
When it can advance it advances, and things all get what they wanted.
1
The thief in the dark waits on heaven.
Ill.
No hour in this one comes up lucky.
2
Hidden goodness waits on heaven.
It flourishes.
The brightness is already on its way to being day.
3
He waits until after the hour.
That is the whole of it.
The thing he was holding comes apart.
4
It bends its horn down and sets its feet straight.
In this posture it waits for the grain.
Nothing about it is sharpened.
5
Big birds settle along the palace wall.
The small man waits down below with nothing.
Nothing up there was got for free.
6
He waits for good fortune, straight and straight.
He eats metal while he waits.
What is straight is what can be worn.
7
He waits for the harm, uneasy and uneasy.
This is the bad man’s waystation.
He and the disaster have made an appointment.
8
He does not make a disaster of the disaster.
He waits for heaven to keep him alive.
The fault in it was never his.
9
He waits, bent and bent.
Heaven brings its hand down on his forehead.
In the end there is no mending it.
THE IMAGE
A solitary scholar-sage sitting patiently on a stone terrace beneath a gnarled pine tree, gazing through morning mist as a distant ferryboat approaches across calm waters.
THE COMMENTARY
The situation is not ready to be forced. Something depends on timing, conditions, or developments that cannot be produced simply by wanting them sooner.
Waiting can be wise, but only when it remains awake. There is a difference between patience and delay, between trusting the right hour and missing it altogether. This oracle asks you to notice what you are waiting for, whether it is actually coming, and what kind of person you are becoming while you wait.
The strongest posture now is neither restless pursuit nor passive resignation. Prepare yourself so that when movement becomes possible, you can recognize it and respond without hesitation.
This figure is one of 81 in Taixuanjing for Today, a book by Joe Perez that renders Yang Xiong’s Canon of Supreme Mystery in original verse, with expanded commentary, essays, and full instructions for casting the oracle yourself.