Yang-Rén-Rén-Yin
The yang breath applies itself.
Things all follow their own hearts and gather up their work.
1
Setting out with no fixed method.
The small man tries it too.
Nothing. It is not a thing he can hold.
2
New and clean, looking for its own worth,
scouring the scent of itself until it is fine.
The light in this falls on the one who did it.
3
Nothing holds him, nothing pulls him back.
The heart goes soft and then goes bad.
There is no part of him left entire.
4
The arrow goes up as if by itself.
It is the feathers, working together.
The canopy holds, the cart carries; this is how.
5
The spider works and works at its thread.
It is not the silkworm’s thread.
No one will ever wear it.
6
Flower and fruit both on the branch and sweet.
Put to use, it comes out well.
The good of it falls inside the year.
7
The scent has gone out of it.
There is nowhere left to go.
Whatever it had has been going for some time.
8
Yellow at the middle of it.
The disaster goes past.
Harmony, and it is straight; those are one thing.
9
The work finishes and undoes itself.
Rain, once it is rain, has to fall.
It did not run out its span; it only arrived.
THE IMAGE
An ox-drawn iron plow tilling fertile terraces as the spring morning sun rises over mist-shrouded hills, with waterwheels channeling irrigation water into leveled paddy fields, and artisans working at looms and forges.
THE COMMENTARY
Work is gathering around a purpose. Effort matters now, but the oracle asks whether the work has a sound method, whether the heart remains intact while doing it, and whether the result will actually be usable once the labour is finished.
Endeavour is not praise of busyness. Some work produces fruit, some merely consumes strength, and some becomes so absorbed in its own process that it forgets why it began. The worth of effort depends on what it serves and how well its parts cooperate.
Apply yourself where the labour has a natural relationship to the outcome. When purpose, method, timing, and usefulness belong together, work can ripen into something that sustains more than the worker alone.
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.