Overview
- Zhōu Dūnyi’s Vision of Dào
- Chén Tuán and Returning to Wújí
- Using the Two Tàijí Diagrams Together
Two diagrams, called Tàijítú, show us how Tàijí is a full worldview. The first is from Zhōu Dūnyi. The second is from Chén Tuán.
Zhōu Dūnyi’s Vision of Dào
Numerous approaches to understanding Tàijí and cosmology are available to us. One of the most orderly possibility comes from Zhōu Dūnyi, 周敦頤 (1017–1073), a Sòng Dynasty Neo-Confucian philosopher and cosmologist.
He articulated a distinct relationship between human conduct and the cosmos. If humans could master their qì, he asserted, they could accord with nature. He is credited as the first philosopher to popularize these concepts through the Tàijítú, 太極圖 (Tàijí Diagram).
Starting at the top of the drawing, Zhōu sought to give the sequence of the universe’s development in this way:
1. Before this world began, there was only Wújí, 無極, or the limitless. This limitlessness means nothingness—there can be no definitions; no differences; no matter, space, or time.
2. Then there was a change. As soon as there was a difference in the limitlessness, then there was Tàijí, 太極. Tàijí is the summation of duality. That duality is yīn-yáng, 陰陽, represented by the black and white semicircles of Tàijí. The Chinese words state that yáng is movement and yīn is stillness.
3. Tàijí leads to the Wǔxíng, 五行, or Five Phases. (Don’t take the names literally: they are not substances, but symbols for five principles in the world. Wǔxíng, 五行, literally means “five movements.” )
4. That leads to a circle that is identified as Nán, 男 and Nǚ, 女, or Male and Female. Zhōu uses the names of the first two of the Eight Trigrams and the Sixty-Four Hexagrams. Qián-Heaven completes the Male, while Kūn-Earth completes the Female.
5. That leads to the birth of the Ten Thousand Things, Wànwù, 萬物—the poetic term for all beings and all existence.
Chén Tuán and Returning to Wújí
The second version of the Tàijí Diagram is attributed to the Dàoist, Chén Tuán, 陳摶 (871–989). Chén Tuán lived before Zhōu Dūnyi. Moreover, Zhōu mentions Chén in a poem in which he says, “Chén Tuán had the mystery of yīn-yáng’s creative transformations.” Some scholars suspect that Dàoists may have modified Zhōu’s diagram. Regardless of what happened historically, we’re interested in guidance for practice, and both diagrams are important for that.
Chén Tuán was an important Dàoist. He is credited as the founder of the martial art, Liùhébāfǎ, 六合八法, or Six Harmonies and Eight Methods; the creator of the Tàijíchǐ, 太極尺, or Taiji Ruler; the Ershísì shì dǎoyǐnfǎ , 二十四式導引法, or Twenty-Four Posture Daoyin (these exercises are in The Lunar Tao), and a sleeping practice that consisted of slumber for many days. He lived on Wǔdāngshān, 武當山, and later on Huàshān, 華山, and is usually associated with that sacred mountain. Chén was a scholar of the Yìjīng, the River Map, Hétú, 河圖, and the Luò Writing, Luòshū, 洛書, so he could well have created his version of the Tàijítú.
Chén’s diagram is read from the bottom up. The phrase, “gate of the mysterious female,” 玄牝之門, appears in chapter 6 of the Dàodéjīng. It also appears in the Lièzǐ, 列子, and other Dàoist texts .
The valley spirit never dies.
It is called “Mysterious Female,”
The gate of the mysterious female
is called the root of heaven and earth.
It remains softer than soft:
useful without effort.
The next level makes the major techniques of our practice explicit: we refine jīng to change it to qì, and we refine qì and change it to shén. That takes us to the Five Phases and its five kinds of qi, or energy. Thus, the phrase “ the five qi (take us on) a pilgrimage to the source” makes it evident that we are headed toward the limitless that is the origin of the world. The word cháo, 朝, can also mean “to face.” We’re not at the source yet, but we’re traveling toward it.
We then move to the level of Tàijí, which is yīn-yáng. If you look at the white arcs as yáng and the black arcs as yīn, you can see that they represent Kǎn-Water and Lí-Fire of the Eight Trigrams.
Finally, at the top of the diagram, we return to Wújí. When we refine shén, we return to the void. The other phrase means “return to Tàijí.” If we take that literally, we have reached the ultimate limits.
Using the Two Tàijí Diagrams Together
Zhōu Dūnyi’s Tàijítú is about the cosmos. Chén Tuán’s is about the self. Each is the inverse of the other. We must progress through both of them.
Zhōu’s Tàijítú is the macrocosm and Chén’s is the microcosm. One is the universe, the other is the body. Superimposing one on the other expresses the Dàoist idea that the self is a microcosm of the universal.
We can go from Wújí downward to the Ten Thousand Things. We can go upward from the Gate of the Mysterious Female to Wújí. We can enter from any stage. In a way, this is a summation of an entire Dàoist path. Whether you begin from philosophical metaphysics or from the refinement of the Three Treasures, the Dào flows through all of these levels.
Wújí becomes Tàijí. Tàijí is yīn-yáng. We can review that when we practice Tàijíquán. We can see that in our daily lives as we face the flux of relationships and work projects. We can observe it in the stars and the weather. We can feel it in ourselves.
Dàoism can be entered from anywhere. It is the macrocosm and microcosm fused into one. A single success at any point along the circuit leads to the continuity of the whole. Regardless of whether you proceed from Wújí to the Ten Thousand Things, or you rise from the Mysterious Female and return to Wújí, all is Dào