Yin-Yang-Yang-Rén
The yang breath is at its best.
Resolute, it dares to act, and things stretch out what they intend.
1
He fills himself up with his own menace.
There was nothing in there before.
The way went out as the menace came in.
2
The resolve is in the heart and the belly.
Upright.
What is hard in him is hard on the inside.
3
He wears his menace piled on his head.
The gentleman thinks it is not enough.
The small man thinks it is more than enough.
4
The gentleman speaks the way a tool is made.
Soft, and it does not bend.
Hard, and it does not break on you.
5
He does not farm and still he eats.
All his resolve goes into choosing the salary.
The eating does not fit the man.
6
Resolute the way the ridgepole is resolute.
The great house sits still on it.
The state leans on somebody who can take it.
7
The big ram’s kind of resolve.
It makes a noise that is not a good noise.
Nothing it says is measured against anything.
8
Resolute inside the disaster, and straight.
This is the thing the name is made of.
You may kill him; you cannot put a lid on it.
9
The boar sets its tusks and means it.
Somewhere a bow is being drawn.
The showing of the tusks is what called the hunt.
THE IMAGE
An intrepid lone explorer in leather and bronze armor striding boldly across a narrow suspension bridge over a roaring mountain gorge into howling winds, holding an unyielding torch high against the mist.
THE COMMENTARY
The situation calls for firmness, but not for hardness performed for its own sake. Resolve is strongest when it comes from an inward commitment that does not need intimidation, display, or constant assertion to sustain it.
You may need to hold your course despite pressure, uncertainty, or opposition. The oracle asks whether your determination rests on something substantial enough to endure when circumstances become difficult. True resolve can be flexible in manner while remaining immovable at the center.
Do not confuse menace with strength. The person who continually demonstrates how hard they are may already be depending on appearances. What matters now is the capacity to carry weight, speak clearly, and remain faithful to what you have chosen without turning determination into aggression.
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.