Rén-Yin-Rén-Yang
The yin breath cuts at things.
The yang’s shape hangs and wastes, and in seven days it is nearly gone.
1
He cuts away his own ears and eyes.
It reaches as far in as the heart.
There is a middle now with no outside to it.
2
He cuts the wart and the growth off himself.
Nothing rank is left.
He did it while it was still small enough to cut.
3
He cuts off the nose to feed the mouth.
The thing that was breathing for him is gone.
Every subtraction here is only a subtraction.
4
He carves it up and shares it out level.
Nobody’s piece is the small one.
Something can be built on that.
5
He cuts off his own arm and thigh.
The harness horses go with them.
Whatever pulls the cart was cut off it.
6
He cuts and leaves no wound.
The four directions come away full.
A road is a thing that can be divided.
7
Purple rainbow, streaming cloud.
They close in a ring around the sun.
The knife stays in the drawer.
8
He cuts out the wood-worm.
It is the thing he had been sick about.
The country breathes better afterward.
9
He cuts away the flesh to get at the bone.
The blood comes up over his head.
He cut until there was nothing to stand on.
THE IMAGE
A ceremonial bronze blade resting beside medicinal herbs and a carved cedar pruning tool in a clean stone courtyard, with freshly trimmed fruit trees thriving under crisp late-autumn skies.
THE COMMENTARY
Something needs to be removed, divided, reduced, or cut away. The question is whether the cutting preserves what matters or destroys the very structure you are trying to save.
Cutting can be surgical: a diseased part is removed so the whole can recover, resources are divided fairly, or an obstruction is taken away before it spreads. It can also become self-mutilation, excessive sacrifice, or the habit of solving every problem through subtraction.
Use the knife with discrimination. Cut what is corrupt, unnecessary, or wrongly attached, but stop before the remedy begins consuming the body that gave you something worth saving in the first place.
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.