Yin-Rén-Rén-Yang
Day by day the yin grows restless, day by day the yang gives ground.
Restless and yielding, each keeps to its own measure.
1
The measure in the middle is the one that is gone.
Everything outside it is still there.
Nothing built on it will stand up.
2
The marsh does not give ground.
Down in the dark it keeps its measure.
Nobody watching, and still it is level.
3
The small measure is off by a hair.
That hair is a staircase.
What tears at the top was measured at the bottom.
4
Side-boards and end-posts.
Good for building a wall.
Something has to hold the earth while it sets.
5
The post is not a post.
What was being built comes apart.
Nothing anywhere in it can settle.
6
The great measure, checked and checked again.
Heaven puts up the pattern.
He copies it down where people can reach.
7
He will not put a rule to it.
The ghosts are laughing at him already.
They see it before the living do.
8
Stone does not give up being hard, nor cinnabar its red.
This is what a man of principle is.
You could leave a child with him.
9
The small errors are put on account.
Ten years and he does not come back to level.
Each one was forgiven by the next.
THE IMAGE
The sacred Yellow Palace stepped altar terrace enclosed by sacred peaks, with a central bronze incense burner giving rise to swirling golden qi dragon smoke connecting earth and heaven.
THE COMMENTARY
The situation calls for proportion. Something must be judged by limits, scale, timing, capacity, or the relationship between one part and another.
Measure does not mean making everything small. It means knowing how much is enough, how far is appropriate, and what form can actually support what is being asked of it. A tiny error at the beginning may become enormous once repeated across a larger structure.
Use standards carefully and apply them first where they matter most. The point is not to constrain life unnecessarily, but to give it enough shape that what is being built can stand.
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.