Introduction

This verse opens with a paradox: the same quality, resolve, can either release or restrain. The difference is a structure determined by recognizing the appointed time.

The lines that follow deepen this seeming paradox into a transcendent resolution. As we abide in the unknowability of the seeming chaos of life, we are not offered answers, but we begin to recognize patterns. The Way of Heaven doesn’t justify itself; it reveals itself through what it does. What seems random becomes traceable. What seems loose holds everything. What seems silent responds without fail.

Translation

Resolve with certainty is the point,
Resolve without certainty is the nock.
  Each of these brings benefit and harm.

That which heaven depends on… 
  Who can know it?

The Way of Heaven,
  Complicated, yet perfectly traceable,
  Voiceless, yet perfectly responsive,
  Unsummoned, yet arriving on its own.
  It explodes yet is perfectly coordinated.

Heaven’s net is vast,
  Loosely woven,
    yet nothing is lost. 

Commentary

Resolve with certainty is the point,
Resolve without certainty is the nock.
  Each of these brings benefit and harm.

Picture yourself as an Olympic archer. You are in the gold medal round and have trained your whole life for this moment. Your resolve is crystallized into a diamond tip. Nothing could ever cause you to deviate from your mission on every shot, a perfect 10. Something you have done hundreds of thousands of times.

You're competing against someone just as good as you. Maybe better. Now it’s down to the final arrow, and all you have to do is what you know you can do. Make the perfect shot. When you do, you will win the gold and realize your lifelong ambition.

You’ve taken up your bow and nocked your arrow. Your eyes are dialed in on the target. Your hands move with the certainty of a master archer. The string slots into the nock. You draw. The fletching comes to rest on your cheek, right at the corner of your lip. A familiar nesting place. 

But wait! Something isn’t right. HOLD! What is going on?

Time is ticking - of the 120 seconds to shoot the six arrows, 90 seconds have elapsed.

Tension has crept into the back. It’s subtle, but enough that it will divert the arrow. Resolve has sharpened awareness of the necessary conditions. Despite the pressures of time and the closeness of the dream, resolve demands a pause. A hold long enough to release that tension.

Deep Breath - it softens.

Only 15 seconds left.

Draw. Rest. Sight. Hold. YES! Certainty arises.

TWANG! WHOOSH! THUNK! “BULLSEYE!”

Most of our life choices are not so obviously dramatic. Yet, even in the most mundane of moments, Integrity (德, dé) is the resolve to act appropriately, releasing the point of the arrow into the target or holding the nock against the string at the appointed times.