Yin-Yang-Rén-Yin
The yang breath is full to the brim outside.
A faint yin gathers a little in, within.
1
He takes a little and does not lend it back at interest.
People settle; the state comes straight.
The proportion is the whole of it.
2
Greedy gathering, needle by needle.
It soaks in until nothing is straight.
There is no light to be got this way.
3
He sees it small and leaves it alone.
He lets it branch and spread.
He is waiting for it to be worth taking.
4
He gathers the profit by small punishments.
A little comes forward, a great deal goes back.
The governing is walking backwards.
5
The herds are easy and they multiply.
The cocoons come clean off the field.
He did not take the season away from them.
6
Small, and thin as thread, and it becomes the beginning of something large.
The small man does not watch it.
He never learned to see a thing that size.
7
The husband drags the cart, the wife strips the bitter greens.
It feeds the household and starves the state.
Everything gathered here was gathered inward.
8
He gathers greatly.
He goes over greatly.
It was never his to gather.
9
He gathers when the season says to.
It will hold off the worst year when it comes.
Nobody is going to fault him for the size of it.
THE IMAGE
Farmers and stewards carefully gathering harvested wheat sheaves into woven hemp sacks and stacking them neatly in elevated dry storehouses, with balance scales ensuring fair distribution.
THE COMMENTARY
The time concerns collecting, conserving, storing, or drawing resources inward. This may involve money, energy, knowledge, attention, harvest, or simply the decision not to spend everything that comes into your hands.
Gathering is useful when it serves future need and remains proportionate to the larger life around it. It becomes dangerous when accumulation turns inward upon itself, starving the very people or systems from which the resources came.
The oracle asks what should be gathered, how much is enough, and what the gathering is for. Small reserves can become great protection when accumulated patiently. But accumulation without circulation eventually loses its relationship to nourishment and begins to resemble fear.
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.