Overview
- The Classics on Yīn and Yáng
- The Relativity of Reciprocal Pairs
Dào is complex and immense, so we need a mental framework to approach it. One way is to look at all phenomena in terms of yīn and yáng, or reciprocal pairs. All movements are relative: fast and slow, up and down, big and small. Every worldly situation we examine will always be marked by reciprocal pairs.
The Classics on Yīn and Yáng
The term yīn and yáng, appears in chapter 42 of the Dàodéjīng. Yīn, 陰, shows a place, 阝, with a glyph, 侌, that combines the signs for “today” with the sign for “clouds.” Yáng, 陽, shows the sunny side, 昜, of a hill, 阝. These meanings allude to one of the earliest mentions of yīn and yīn in the Shījīng (Classic of Poetry, 詩經, eleventh–seventh century BCE). Here is an abridged prose rendering:
Duke Liú was deeply dedicated. His territory was broad and long. He climbed to the ridge tops, watched the shifting of yīn and yáng, and observed the courses of the streams and springs. Accordingly, he divided his armies into three divisions, measured the marshes and springs, set out the fields for planting, and calculated the times for dusk and dawn. —Shījīng, “Gōng Liú,” 5
Picture yourself on that ridge top with Duke Liú (Gōng Liú, 公劉; before tenth century BCE). The sun moves across the landscape. Light and dark are conditions of the hillside—they aren’t the hill itself.
Yīn is negative, shady, dark, night, cold, wet, down, low, underneath, back, soft, female, and so on. Yáng is positive, sunny, light, day, hot, dry, up, high, above, front, hard, male, and so on. These terms are relative and contextual. A woman might be yīn compared to a man, but as a matriarch, her role would be yáng relative to the subordinate members of her family. Yīn and yáng shift relative to context.
Chapter 42 of the Dàodéjīng explains: “Myriad things carry yīn and hold yáng, and energy infuses them in harmony.” The word “infuse,” is chōng, 沖. It also means “rushing; plunging; flushing.” The word for energy is qì, 氣. Previously, qì had a narrower definition of “breath.” “Concentrate your breath with fine softness.” (Dàodéjīng, ch. 10) Whether the universe or a person, energy infuses everything.
The Relativity of Reciprocal Pairs
Thinking in terms of yīn and yáng means that we can think in terms of reciprocal pairs.
For example, Chapter 1 of the Dàodéjīng immediately defines a Dào that can be told and a constant Dào that can’t be told. It describes names that can be named and names that cannot be named. Chapter 2 mentions that the world knows beauty because of ugliness:
difficult and easy complete one another,
long and short contrast with each other,
high and low supplant each other,
pitch and tone harmonize with each other,
before and after follow one another.
Later, we read: “Disaster! Good fortune depends on it. Good fortune! Disaster hides in it.” (Dàodéjīng, ch. 58) Since every pair is reciprocal, it’s best to avoid labels such as opposites, duality, or dichotomy. We should not assume that we can separate a pair or choose only one side. We have many examples of how pairs work together. Your feet—mirror-images of each other—function best when coordinated. You use both hands to perform your daily work. Chopsticks are a pair used as a single implement.
This understanding must inform our philosophy. We are accustomed to exclusion in logical argument: If A implies B and B implies C, then A implies C. If A implies B and B is false, then A must be false. The School of Names, also known as the Logicians (Míngjiā, 名家), used such argument and logic in debate. In the West, we put great value on this approach: “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1011b25) This kind of thinking, while useful, can only partly be applied to the Dàodéjīng.
Modern thought increasingly requires going beyond either-or-and reductionism. For example, physicists describe a quantum entity as both a particle and a wave. Lǎozì wrote: “know male, conserve female,” (Dàodéjīng, ch. 28) and “Know white, conserve black.” (28.6) Every pair belongs to “a great system that cannot be cut apart.” (Dàodéjīng, ch. 28)
We have to be judicious about how we frame our thinking:
We can use reductive logical thinking
We can use relativistic thinking, identifying the two sides to everything while realizing that they are inseparable.
We can use holistic thinking (gestalt) in which all sides and all contradictions are united.
Thinking in terms of reciprocal pairs is essential as long as we remember that it’s not the sole way to think about Dào. We have to know when to think in that way, and when to use other means. For the majority of worldly matters, though, the lessons of yīn and yáng are profound.