Yang-Yin-Yang-Rén
The yang breath begins to peep out.
Things take shape childishly, not yet knowing anything.
1
The blockish child does not wake.
He meets us in the muddled dark.
The dark may be where he stays.
2
He shuffles the spirit stalks, he burns the shell.
Out of the mud and into the oil.
The light is a road and he has drawn near it.
3
The eastern star is already bright.
He cannot bring himself to go.
Why is he not gone?
4
Some come behind the man in front.
The light is handed to the one who leads.
Being first is what makes the light large.
5
Beating the thick brush for a rhinoceros.
What comes out is not the prize.
Nothing here is worth the shouting.
6
He throws the tent-curtains wide open
and draws in guests from every direction.
He is looking at all the lights at once.
7
Grown tall, grown tall,
and his mind the size of a dwarf’s.
There is nothing to be done with the height.
8
Some strike at him, some stab.
He goes on polishing the dark mirror.
What was fault turns over into something else.
9
The young elk goes head-on at the rhinoceros.
Its skull comes back as ashes.
The whole force of it returned to the sender.
THE IMAGE
A youthful student under an ancient blossoming plum tree near a stone garden well, holding bamboo slips while gentle spring wind stirs tender willow branches and fresh mountain sprouts.
THE COMMENTARY
Something is immature, inexperienced, or only beginning to understand the world it has entered. Youth can describe a person, a plan, a relationship, a spiritual path, or any undertaking that has taken form before it has acquired judgment.
The oracle does not condemn inexperience. What is young can learn, grow, and move toward light, but only if it knows that it does not yet know. Trouble comes when undeveloped strength mistakes itself for mastery or when appearance matures faster than understanding.
This is a figure of education, exposure, and the gradual enlargement of perception. Seek what illuminates, but do not confuse curiosity with readiness. A beginner can go very far by learning well and very quickly into danger by assuming that enthusiasm is the same as capacity.
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.