Yang-Yang-Yin-Rén
The yang breath is faint in its trusting.
Things pull apart from each other and collide with their own kind.
1
Hollow already, and crooked.
The heart has a tilt in it.
What it carries cannot sit straight.
2
Set the belly straight,
draw the back after it.
Ripe and upright: the middle has settled.
3
The belly twisted,
the back held straight.
Inside and outside are fighting.
4
Husband and wife go opposite ways.
By this the house is kept.
Each is guarding a different wall.
5
Shooting at the rhinoceros in the southeast;
the arrow is away in the northwest.
They did not get the head.
6
Plumb-line, cord, compass, square —
no two of them applied alike.
Each tool departs from the road its own way.
7
A woman not a woman,
her heart already given away,
and the husband’s counsel overturned.
8
Killing and giving life cross at noon.
The center is what makes the border.
Harmony is where the two run into each other.
9
The grey spirit-bird’s mate.
They do not roost together and are lost apart.
The year’s work comes out crooked.
THE IMAGE
A divided cosmic compass with opposing dragon and tiger qi currents swirling in tension across an ancient stone courtyard, with crossed bronze axes and opposing mountain ridges.
THE COMMENTARY
Something is out of alignment. The parts may still function, but they are pulling in different directions: intention against action, inner conviction against outward conduct, one person against another, or means against ends.
Do not assume that harmony requires everyone or everything to move the same way. Sometimes opposing positions preserve a larger whole, as two people guarding different sides of the same house. The deeper question is whether the differences are complementary or whether they have become contradictions that distort the entire situation.
Perversity asks for straightening rather than suppression. Find the point at which the deviation began. A small inward crookedness can eventually throw every instrument out of measure, while a genuine center can allow opposites to meet without destroying one another.
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.