Yin-Yang-Yang-Yin
The yang breath is strong within and hard without.
When it moves it can cut and decide.
1
He decides it in the heart and puts the axe away.
The measuring line stays out of sight.
The governing was all done inside.
2
He decides in the dark and decides wrong.
His ears are stopped up.
The doubt was sitting in the middle of him.
3
He cuts through the deafness, he clears the nose.
Now the filth can be got at.
Good counsel gets in the same way.
4
He cannot decide his own case.
He eats what was not earned.
There is a shame in the eating.
5
The swollen belly is opened, the thigh comes free.
The gentleman makes the cut.
Even the small man goes on living.
6
He will not decide when deciding is the thing.
The enemy is not far off.
Later there is an axe, and it is his.
7
Metal comes down on wood.
The heart that does it is not a small heart.
What is left afterward has a shine on it.
8
A small man swinging, calling it courage.
A thief under a hood, cutting and cutting.
None of it was a decision.
9
The axe-blade stands up bright.
It is the carpenter’s to use.
The same edge goes out against disorder.
THE IMAGE
A gleaming ancient bronze broadsword cleanly slicing through a heavy knotted suspension rope on a stone altar terrace, with lightning striking dead wood on an opposite peak as fresh saplings flourish.
THE COMMENTARY
A matter needs to be decided. The time for indefinite weighing may be ending, and clarity now depends on separating what belongs from what does not, what can continue from what must be cut away.
Decision is not the same as aggression. The cleanest decisions are often made inwardly first, after enough understanding has gathered that the outward act becomes almost simple. The danger lies in cutting before seeing clearly, refusing to decide when the moment demands it, or mistaking violence of manner for decisiveness.
Use the sharp instrument only where a real distinction must be made. A good decision restores function and order; a bad one merely proves that someone was willing to swing the axe.
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.