4 | Yin and Yang

THE Far-Eastern tradition in its strictly cosmological branch attributes a fundamental importance to the two principles, or ‘categories’, which it calls yang and yin. Everything active, positive or masculine is yang; everything passive, negative or feminine is yin.

In a symbolic sense these two categories are associated with light and shade: the bright side of anything is yang, the dark side yin. But as neither can ever be found without the other, they are far more commonly presented as complementary rather than opposed.^[1] This connotation of light and darkness occurs for example at a literal level in the determination of geographical sites.^[2] As for the more general and extensive significance of the terms yang and yin which identifies them with the two components of every complementarity, this has countless applications in all the traditional sciences.^[3]

Inasmuch as all complementarities—however specific or particular—derive from the two primary complementaries, Heaven and Earth, it will be obvious from what has already been said that yang is whatever proceeds from the nature of Heaven and yin whatever proceeds from the nature of Earth. From this we can see immediately why the terms yang and yin have been equated with light and shade. The yang aspect of beings in fact corresponds to their ‘essential’ or ‘spiritual’ nature, and it is common knowledge that Spirit is identified with Light in the symbolism of all traditions. By way of contrast, the yin aspect of beings is what attaches them to ‘substance’; and ‘substance’, by virtue of the ‘unintelligibility’ implicit in its indistinction or its state of pure potentiality, can quite accurately be described as the dark root of all existence. Keeping to this same perspective we can also (using Aristotelian and Scholastic terminology) define yang as everything that is ‘in act’ and yin as everything that is ‘in potency’. Or, alternatively, we can say that every being is yang to the extent that it is ‘in act’ and yin to the extent that it is ‘in potency’, for both these aspects will necessarily be found together in every manifested thing.

Heaven is entirely yang and Earth entirely yin, which is tantamount to saying that Essence is pure act and Substance pure potency. However, this applies to Heaven and Earth alone, as the two poles of universal manifestation; in all manifested things there is no yang without yin and no yin without yang, for everything by nature partakes simultaneously of both Heaven and Earth.^[4]

Now if we consider yang and yin specifically in the light of their roles as masculine element and feminine element, we are justified in saying that owing to this participation we have just spoken of, every being is in a certain sense and to a certain degree ‘androgynous’; and we can add that the greater the state of equilibrium of these two elements within it, the more ‘androgynous’ it will be. In other words, the masculine or feminine characteristics of an individual being (or to be more precise, its predominantly masculine or feminine characteristics) can be seen as being due to the preponderance of either the one element or the other. Obviously it would be out of place here to attempt to follow through all the consequences that can be deduced from this statement. Yet it requires only a moment’s thought to obtain a fairly clear idea of their significance, particularly for all the sciences that are concerned with the study of man as an individual from the various standpoints from which he can be viewed. We have seen earlier that Earth displays its ‘dorsal’ face and Heaven its ‘ventral’ face; and this is why yin is ‘outward’ and yang ‘inward’.^[5] In other words only terrestrial influences (being yin) are susceptible to sense perception; celestial influences (being yang) elude the senses and can only be grasped by the faculties of the intellect. This is one of the reasons why yin is generally mentioned before yang in traditional texts. Such a practice could seem incompatible with the hierarchical relationship between the principles of Heaven and Earth to which they correspond, in that these two principles are, respectively, the upper or superior pole of manifestation and the lower or inferior pole. But this reversal of the order of the two complementary terms is typical of a particular cosmological point of view, which is also that of the Hindu Sankhya: here, likewise, Prakriti appears at the start of the list of tattvas, and Purusha at the end. In fact this point of view proceeds, so to speak, from the lower to the higher, in the same way that the construction of a building starts at the base and is completed at the top. It begins with what can be grasped most immediately and proceeds towards what is more hidden; in other words it goes from the outward to the inward, or from yin to yang. In this it is exactly the opposite of the metaphysical perspective which proceeds from the inward to the outward, starting from the principle and arriving at the consequences. This difference in direction is a clear indication that the two different perspectives actually correspond to two different degrees of reality. In addition, we have seen elsewhere that in the unfolding of the cosmogonic process, darkness—equated with chaos—is ‘in the beginning’, whereas the light that brings order into this chaos and out of it produces the Cosmos comes ‘after the darkness’.^[6] This amounts yet again to saying that, in this particular context, _yin_ effectively comes before _yang_.^[7]

Considered independently from each other, _yang_ and _yin_ are represented in linear form by the symbols called the ‘two determinations’ (_êrh - i_). These are the solid and broken lines that are the constituent elements of the trigrams and hexagrams in the _I Ching_, and this in such a way that these trigrams and hexagrams represent every possible combination of these two terms—combinations which taken together make up the entirety of the manifested world. The first hexagram, _Ch’ien_, and the last, _K’un_,^[8]

consist of six solid and six broken lines respectively, and therefore represent the fullness of _yang_ (equated with Heaven) and the fullness of _yin_ (equated with Earth). All the other hexagrams are placed between these two extremes: in them _yang_ and _yin_ are combined in different proportions, and so they correspond to the unfolding of all manifestation.

!Figure 9 Figure 9

When these two terms _yang_ and _yin_ are united they are represented by the symbol called, precisely, _yin-yang_ (figure 9).^[9] We have already studied this symbol elsewhere from the particular standpoint according to which it portrays the ‘circle of individual destiny’.^[10] In accordance with the symbolism of light and darkness, the light section of the diagram is yang and the dark part yin. As for the central dots—dark in the light part, light in the dark—they are reminders that in reality yang and yin are never found independent of each other. Inasmuch as the yang and yin are already differentiated although still united (which is precisely why the diagram is called yin-yang), the figure is also a symbol of the primordial ‘Androgyne’ because it is made up of the masculine and feminine principles. It is also, according to an alternative traditional symbolism that is even more widespread, the ‘World Egg’ whose two halves have not yet separated to become Heaven and Earth.^[11]

If, on the other hand, we look at the diagram from another point of view as forming an indivisible whole^[12] (which is in fact how it would appear from the principal standpoint) it then becomes the symbol of T’ai Chi, which we therefore see at once to be the synthesis of yin and yang. But here we must add the proviso that this synthesis, because it is the primal Unity, exists prior to the differentiation of its elements and is therefore absolutely independent of them. In fact there can strictly be no question of any yin and yang save in reference to the manifested world, which itself derives entirely from the ‘two determinations’.

These two alternative perspectives according to which the symbol can be viewed are summed up in the following formula: 'The ten thousand beings are produced (chao) by T'ai I (which is equivalent to T'ai Chi) and modified (hua) by yin-yang'. Indeed, all things derive from the principal Unity,^[13] but their modifications in the process of 'coming to be' are due to the reciprocal actions and reactions of the 'two determinations'.