OFFICE OF THE RECORDS — PATTERN FILE
PATTERN 12-40
DORMANTSTANDSTILL resolving to DELIVERANCE. Filed under: the held position, the lowly gatekeeper honored, deliverance from the gate.
INDEX ENTRY — ON FILE BEFORE EVERY INCIDENT BELOW
伊尹致仕，去桀耕野；執順以傳，反和無咎。
Yi Yin gives up office and plows the wild fields; holding the compliant way he hands it on, and returns to harmony without fault.
published fragment: Jiaoshi Yilin, c. 40 BC — the entry predates all surviving copies
LOGGED OCCURRENCES
- 16TH C. BCTang halting his chariot for a plowman
Tang halting his chariot for a plowman — Yi Yin, the first empty seat. Filed under the pattern's earlier run.
- DALIANG, c. 257 BCThe Empty Seat
Lord Xinling drove personally to the east gate and held the seat of honor empty for Hou Ying, gatekeeper, age seventy. Subject gatekeeper tested the arrangement: detours, a market errand, a long conversation mid-traffic. Filed as ENTRY 020/64.
- 1946THE COALITION THAT HAD A SEAT FOR NO ONE
General George Marshall spent the year mediating between the Nationalist government and the Communists: a ceasefire in January, a Political Consultative Conference, a draft coalition with portfolios reserved for the opposition. By summer the truce had collapsed into open war, and the reserved seats were never filled. The chair was real; the sitting never happened.
Cited by card ENTRY 020/64 · The Empty Seat — The Records, Deck 1.
STILL RUNNING