Yin-Yin-Rén-Rén
The yin is empty within, the yang swells around it.
Things are all like a lid on a bowl.
1
A pool spreading wide and wide.
It takes in everything, from no fixed province.
Down in the dark, and nobody has seen it.
2
He makes his plans large.
He grinds himself down on them.
The whetstone was his own body.
3
Great, and not calling itself great.
So it becomes great.
The small things went in first as footing.
4
He enlarges his gate and enlarges his outskirts.
He never finds the knife.
The name arrives as the substance leaves.
5
He takes in the waste ground by holding the middle.
It works.
Nine kinds of stranger come under one roof.
6
The great loses by the small.
The many lose by the few.
The reckoning came in through something the size of a crack.
7
Swollen and sprawling, he pares himself back to the rule.
Someone adds food to his bowl for it.
He was able to say no to himself.
8
A high wall on a steep footing.
Three years without anyone tamping the earth.
It comes down, and not slowly.
9
The great ends by wearing thin.
What is blocked goes out past the sky.
The small was the material the great was made of.
THE IMAGE
An enlightened sage-king standing atop the terrace of the Imperial Temple of Heaven, clothed in solar robes, surrounded by scholars, astronomers, and ambassadors, embracing all four quarters of the realm.
THE COMMENTARY
Something large is forming or already present. Influence, responsibility, ambition, scope, or capacity may be expanding beyond ordinary proportions, and the question is whether the structure can truly support that scale.
Greatness is not achieved merely by making everything bigger. The oracle repeatedly turns toward humility, inclusion, and the small elements from which largeness is actually built. What becomes great without remembering its foundation eventually hollows itself out.
Make room for breadth without losing the center. A large undertaking needs more than a large name; it needs a structure that can receive difference, withstand strain, and remain connected to the small realities that made growth possible.
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.