Rén-Rén-Yin-Yang
The yin is at its widest and makes the yang weep.
Nothing of its own kind is left, and the tearing-apart is at its worst.
1
The bone drags at the flesh it hangs in.
Hidden.
The harm is walking about inside.
2
An eating sore that bleeds.
Ill, and upright.
The wound is on the inside of a good man.
3
The drink gets going and the goodness goes.
Something is glancing in at the room.
There is nobody holding the reins.
4
He takes a post in a broken time.
His parents come and eat what is left of the meal.
He went along with it, and it was for them.
5
He walks out and the countryside is empty.
A tiger is minding the pigs; it takes the trousers and the shirt.
There is nowhere left to put a foot down.
6
The four countries are full to here.
Somewhere to live.
Everyone is looking for the same thing.
7
Fat on him and more fat.
He is wearing the reckoning on his face.
Anybody can see it from the road.
8
The jar is dragging on the well-rope.
Upright, and worn out.
The work is pressing on him from every side.
9
The sea gets up and flies in flocks.
It wrecks itself against the sky’s crossbeam.
There is nothing anyone could say to that.
THE IMAGE
Engineers and laborers working through freezing sleet with torches and sandbags to reinforce a strained mountain reservoir embankment under intense pressure.
THE COMMENTARY
The situation has become severe. Pressure, disorder, pain, conflict, or exhaustion may have reached a degree at which ordinary adjustments no longer feel proportionate to what is happening.
Extremity reveals what was already wrong by making it impossible to ignore. Hidden damage becomes visible, strained systems expose their weakest points, and people discover what they are willing to carry when there is little room left for comfort.
Do not romanticize hardship, but do not waste it either. The question now is what remains upright under extreme conditions, what must be abandoned, and where continued strain has crossed from sacrifice into destruction.
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.