Yin-Yin-Yin-Yang
The yang hangs its law up high.
Things look up at the marking-line, and nothing is not covered by the rule.
1
He makes a law and the law is not lawful.
There is nothing to be done with it.
The making was the fault.
2
He cuts the law to the middle of things.
It holds.
It holds because it is what everyone walks on.
3
The level and the line are out.
The compass and square go with them.
Everything measured after this is wrong.
4
Level, line, compass, square.
Nothing goes against what he lays down.
It goes out from his own body first.
5
The rope runs down and down.
The jar goes in with its belly already full.
The well is brimming and he comes up dry.
6
By the cord and by the great rope of the net.
He shows it in a straight light.
Everything hangs from something you can see.
7
A fine net goes down into the deep water.
Nothing with scales does well.
The mesh has been made too small on purpose.
8
He straightens the ones who are guilty.
It arrives at a place where nobody is crooked.
Punishment aimed at the end of punishing.
9
The well has lost its frame.
The water goes straight out over the lip.
It is not a stream and not a valley, and it ends badly.
THE IMAGE
An imperial tribunal and architectural guild hall where master judges and surveyors utilize bronze balance scales, carpenter’s squares, marking gauges, and water-levels to align stone monuments with celestial constellations.
THE COMMENTARY
A rule, standard, agreement, or governing principle needs to be made clear. The question is not merely whether rules exist, but whether they arise from something sound enough to deserve obedience.
Good law gives people a line they can actually walk. Bad law multiplies confusion because everything measured against a crooked standard becomes crooked in turn. The strongest rule begins with the person who applies it and does not demand from others what it refuses to embody.
This oracle asks you to distinguish guidance from control. Standards can create order, but when they become too fine, punitive, or detached from their purpose, they begin obstructing the life they were meant to regulate.
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.