Integration of Opposites

digital / slightly rendered

spring 2012

Chinese philosophy...sees the primal opposites of Yin and Yang.  Yin is the principle of rest, the unchanging, the dark, the cool, the moist, the female, the side of the mountain in the shade.  Yang is the principle of movement, of change, the bright, the hot, the dry, the male, the side of the mountain in the sun.  Yin is continually going over to Yang, Yang is continually going over to Yin.  The two are combined in the T'ai Chi.  Yin has the seed of Yang in it, Yang has the seed of Yin; Yin is perpetually becoming Yang, Yang is perpetually becoming Yin; the whole harmoniously working together for the man, or the people, who can see the opposites in their deep consonance with the ordinances of Heaven.  Wu Wei, an untranslatable expression, usually rendered as 'not-doing', a wise acceptance of life, an inaction which enables the creative activity to operate, is the essence of the Chinese view.

~

Experiment in Depth

A Study of the Work of Jung, Eliot and Toynbee

P.W. Martin, Kegan Paul 1955, p. 141