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Chinese cosmology vs science
Chinese cosmology is often quite confusing.
Superstition and ignorance are employed rather than common sense.
There is no religion, belief or faith required - the process is merely a
reflection of the development of human consciousness.
3 stages
Stages of consciousness:
The undivided
Self and other
Change, options, choices, variables and possibilities
Undivided
Consider: a baby is born and it has no sense of this and that,
self and
other.
The child would not know its own reflection or see itself as separate from
anything else.
This condition is 'wu chi' - wholeness, undivided. It is represented by a
circle.
Self and other
Later, the child becomes self conscious and has a sense of self and other,
here and there, this and that, yin and yang.
The world now appears to be divided into apparent opposites (although in
reality they remain whole).
Within yin is a yang dot, within yang there is a yin dot.
Also, yin taken to its extreme becomes yang. Yang taken to its extreme
becomes yin.
Change
As the child matures its perception changes again; each scenario is no
longer black and white, this or that.
This is 'bagua' - change.
Everything has variables, permutations, possibilities and choices.
We learn the true meaning of tai chi; that there are no absolutes and the
apparent opposites actually contain aspects of each other.
Wholeness
Yin and yang are not separate qualities, they constitute aspects of
the whole.
Day/night, hard/soft, hot/cold, light/dark, up/down, left/right, front/back,
inside/outside, here/there, before/after, now/then, this/that...
The tai chi symbol
The Chinese symbol called 'tai chi' or the 'supreme
ultimate' contains yin and yang.
Yin is black and yang is white.
Tai chi
combines yin and yang to produce a process of dynamic balancing.
Balance
Hard/soft, strong/weak, day/night, male/female are all represented by this
symbol.
Within the apparent opposites, part of the other exists.
The symbol represents balance. Yin and yang join to form a composite whole.
What is balance?
Balance is commonly seen as being a condition of
stillness and rest.
Yet, people cannot reasonably find a fixed point of balance in their lives
because life
is not static.
The changing nature of existence means that we need to be re-adjusting
constantly.
Yin
and yang are not in competition or conflict with each other but are
complements of each other.
Balance is not a state but a process.
The Tao is a process, a dynamic condition of balanced moving.
(Ray Grigg)
Yin
Yin is the black part of the yin/yang symbol.
Yin properties are female, dark, passive, cool, low, rounded, horizontal,
soft.
Yin is quiet, shy, secretive and weak.
Students have extreme difficulty understanding yin.
They do not recognise the purpose of yielding, sensitivity, listening,
feeling, withdrawing.
To the new starter, yang seems much clearer and more effective.
Yin body
A yin body is
soft and flexible.
It never tenses-up the muscles and only occasionally assumes a seeming
hardness.
Solidity is achieved through other means, in particular: spiralling,
connection and sinking within the frame.
Reliance upon the soft tissue of the body is essential, not upon bone or
muscular tension.
Stretch too far, lock a joint or tense a muscle and you are no longer
performing tai chi.
Rubber
A tai chi person should have good muscle tone. The body should be
quite rubbery and firm.
There is always 'give', yet beneath this there is solidity without tension.
Think yin
Your immediate progress lies in the realm of darkness and
quietude.
You need to become far more subtle and elusive.
Remove the obvious from your repertoire.
Disguise your intentions.
Become mysterious and unpredictable. Embrace yin.
Water
Water is soft and weak. A yin quality.
It can be poured and will take the shape of any container.
Yet in sufficient quantity it can cause monumental destruction.
Water can erode rock.
If you fall onto water from a high altitude it is the same as striking
concrete.
Sand
Sand is soft and weak.
Whilst the grains are coarse, sand yields to the touch just as water does.
Try filling a football with sand?
It will eventually become as hard as rock.
Yet the sand is still yin.
The density and volume make it feel yang.
The Ancients were not
learned, they did not know sophisticated definitions. They did not know the
'meaning' of things, as when a parent tells a child, "That is a tree," as if
that term, that definition, were the summation of the tree's reality.
(Wolfe Lowenthal)
Yang
Yang is the white part of the tai chi symbol.
Yang properties are male, light, active, warm, straight, high, geometric,
vertical, hard.
Yang is bold, obvious, open and strong.
Yang qualities are fairly easy to cultivate. Yin qualities are not.
Martial artists do not favour being soft and smooth. The norm is yang.
This is why Japanese martial artists usually wear white.
Yang body
The external arts train what might be called a 'yang body'; with
deep
stretches, forceful exercise and muscular contraction being the focus of the
training.
Emphasis is placed upon stamina, high repetitions, going further: it is
willpower-directed exercise.
A yang body is hard, contracted and tense.
Challenge
The challenge for students lies in becoming more yin.
There must be a significant move from white to black, from hard to soft.
You can no longer shrug off clumsiness and call it
strength.
Yin skill lies in being quietly in control of your opponent, but with no
more substance than a shadow.
It is necessary to be slow and smooth, gentle and silent.
This will not be easy.
Yang arises from yin
In Chinese cosmology, light comes from darkness.
This seems to echo what we see in space and in physics.
The universe is a series of pinpricks puncturing the black cloth of
darkness.
Knowledge arises from ignorance, from not knowing.
And no matter how much we learn, we are still awed by the magnitude of the
unknown.
Using yin/yang in your practice
At its most basic, yin/yang can be seen in terms of balance and resistance.
If you push a person and they resist, then they are meeting your (yang) push
with their own (yang) forward movement.
This is force on force.
It is fighting/resisting.
To complete the yin/yang equation, simply change direction; instead of
pushing (yang), you can pull (yin).
This will add follow the incoming line of force, add to their push and take
their balance.
Mutual arising
The attacking limb may be considered hard or yang.
If you block its line of force, this is yang on yang, force on force and is
not internal.
Instead, you must softly meet yang with yin, re-direct and neutralise.
To perform this skill well, it is necessary to move as the attacker moves,
to blend with their movement.
This completes the yin/yang diagram and enables you to capitalise upon the
incoming force.
Form
It is necessary to balance left/right, upper/lower,
substantial/insubstantial, full/empty.
If the left leg is yang, then the left hand is yin.
If the forward leg is weighted, then the opposite hand is the substantial
one.
One hand must always be in a yin state relative to the other hand which is
yang.
The same goes for the feet.
Hands and feet must coordinate.
Every single movement must balance the body - up & down, left & right -
substantial and insubstantial.
It is easy to mess this up and start thinking of hard/soft in terms of
tense/relaxed.
Tai chi fighting
method
Tai chi may seem to be mainly yin because it
is receptive, flowing, relaxed and calm.
Yet, tai chi is both yin and yang.
Yin is balanced by the firmness and substance of yang.
The art of tai chi is concerned with the process of balancing yin and
yang, of returning the body to its natural state.
Understanding the Balance in terms of tai chi is quite complex and is not
addressed at length until later in the syllabus.
Trade off
Yin/yang symbolises the process of exchange. You want a new car? You must pay.
You want to learn French? You must study, set time aside, practice
and persevere.
You want to eat healthily? You will need to research, buy fresh
ingredients, prepare and cook the food.
People commonly believe that they can have it all without having to
give anything up.
This is simply naive.
To have one thing you must give up something else.
Page created
18 April 1995
Last updated
16 June 2023
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