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Can anyone easily explain the concept of 'YIN and YANG' ?
zenmyste
Veteran
Can you explain as simply as possible what the meaning of YIN and YANG is?
Is it just saying everything has an opposite??
And we need abit of this to have that??
How would you explain it simply?
Thanks in advance.
x
Is it just saying everything has an opposite??
And we need abit of this to have that??
How would you explain it simply?
Thanks in advance.
x
0
Comments
This is why yin gradually leads into yang and there is a spot of yang in yin and vice versa.
We may be able to say a red delicious is the opposite of a green Macintosh in the spectrum of apples but the only opposite of "apple" is "no-apple".
Man may be the opposite of woman but there is no opposite of "human" except "no-human".
Yin may be the opposite of yang but the only opposite for the "yin yang" is "no-yin yang".
Too much dark and we are unable to see. Too much light and we're blinded.
The middle way really is expansive in my honest opinion.
We can do it with anything. As soon as a perspective is taken, up and down seperate. Add another perspective and we get subjectivity. What is up in one viewpoint is down in another.
Another point to ponder is that if one thing depends on another to exist, would this not imply they are actually complimentary aspects of the same thing?
Dependant arising... Interbeing...
If I wasn't into Buddhism and Taoism I think this exact question would have driven me mad years ago.
I even made my own koan of sorts... What is the fine line between the tool and the art?
Identity of Relative and Absolute
The mind of the Great Sage of India was intimately
conveyed from west to east.
Among human beings are wise ones and fools,
But in the Way there is no northern or southern Patriarch.
The subtle source is clear and bright; the tributary
streams flow through the darkness.
To be attached to things is illusion;
To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment.
Each and all, the subjective and objective spheres are related,
and at the same time, independent.
Related, yet working differently, though each keeps its own place.
Form makes the character and appearance different;
Sounds distinguish comfort and discomfort.
The dark makes all words one; the brightness distinguishes good and bad phrases.
The four elements return to their nature as a child to its mother.
Fire is hot, wind moves, water is wet, earth hard.
Eyes see, ears hear, nose smells, tongue tastes the salt and sour.
Each is independent of the other; cause and effect must return to the great reality
Like leaves that come from the same root.
The words high and low are used relatively.
Within light there is darkness, but do not try to understand that darkness;
Within darkness there is light, but do not look for that light.
Light and darkness are a pair, like the foot before
and the foot behind, in walking. Each thing has its own intrinsic value
and is related to everything else in function and position.
Ordinary life fits the absolute as a box ands its lid.
The absolute works together with the relative like two arrows meeting in mid-air.
Reading words you should grasp the great reality. Do not judge by any standards.
If you do not see the Way, you do not see it even as you walk on it.
When you walk the Way, it is not near, it is not far.
If you are deluded, you are mountains and rivers away from it.
I respectfully say to those who wish to be enlightened:
Do not waste your time by night or day.
In the I Ching when a situation is completely good, it is bad. It has the seed of decay in it. And when the situation is absolutely disastrous, it holds the promise of an imminent change for the better.
I have always planned to do a comprehensive written study. Maybe I will start my notes now that I have a place appropriate for pearls to be cast. But, I can tell you this.
The underlying structure of all things is based on the simple structure we see in the symbol. But it is of the universe and not for us. The symbol is the secret of the structure we are experiencing in this world. It is not "us" per say, but the song your life sings in harmony for completion and advancement of your essential being that inhabits our physical.
The symbol first is a cycle. The curved demarcation is a sine wave. A perfect rise and decay. But the secret is that it is not 2-dimensional, but a cyclic full circle from above.
Imagine you are looking at the sine wave from the side. It is a spiral, or a point in time in profile traveling one complete cycle. From above it looks like a circle, but you do not see its traveling through time and space. From the side you see it’s progression through time. The yin Yang is one cycle in time. It continues to travel in time, but from the top, looks like it is going around and around. Every cycle we experience is different, and never is the same. That’s because it is progressing with the other element of this universe. Time. The ancient illuminated Taoist/ Buddhists saw and understood that. So in the symbol the wave is one cycle in time. The cycle is also a fundamental secret of matter and energy.
We, our bodies, our molecules, our atoms, our subatomic particles, our quarks and below are ripples in a sea of quantum foam. The quantum foam being comprised mini white holes and black holes. There is no substance otherwise. This is below the level of subatomic particles as far as we are to the sub atomic realm. We are nothing.
The ocean of quanta, white and black holes, are just vortexes where time goes one way and another way, Into black holes, and out of white holes. Our macro universe can be understood as possibly the perfect analogy, where stars of all frequencies, (there are infinite frequencies of stars as individual as we are), and quasars throw out matter and energy. Black holes otherwise consume this matter and energy, only resisted by the most energetic particles of Gamma and higher. So you can imagine the same scene in quantum foam.
Ripples are waves. There is a source for ripples in a pond when you throw a stone in. If you throw many stones in at the same time, the waves interact and affect each other, creating a pattern in the once still pond. Everything we see is a result of those patterns. The world is a composite of our individual beings impact of making waves in the universe. We are the stones thrown in the pond, so to speak, and as such comprise each of our individual awareness’s. Everyone has a ripple they make. They are in turn effected by the others. So if I create love in my external emissions of myself, it is perceived and affects others. It is always perceived from a different unique perspective, but it’s original energy or intention is in the wave. The wave you make can also travel through others, and modified or distorted depending on the essential “tuning” of the being. But if the original energy is pure, the energy travels more unobstructed. For instance pure unconditional love has the most energy and has the most potential of affecting in it’s original intentions frequency because it uses the carrier wave that is most powerful. Love being the fundamental OM frequency of all, or the sum total of all beings radiating in the universe.
There is much more to explain, many holes to fill in this short note, but I am now starting the process of writing what my own being has seen in an enlightened moment. The same infinite moment many have been. I will endeavor to finish this, and add illustrations, (because I am a science illustrator and fine art painter). I awoke with a dream of the Buddha within a yin Yang comprised of the earth and the galaxy. I am following that specific flow, through many reflections to you.
GM
Scientists are starting to see that the natural world is made up by fractals. For instance, the number and size of branches on a single tree in a forest is representational of the number and size of the trees in that forest.
KEEP. IT. SIMPLE.
or take it to PM-ing.
Thanks.
Frankly, I read the posts and you lost me at the third line.
Just follow the op's request.
Thanks.
what is 'hot' in comparison to another 'hot'?
What is 'cold' in comparison to another 'cold?
hot and cold are measurements, not opposites.
Not to say it can not be useful in it's own right at times, but just to show that Buddhist philosophy doesn't nescessarily agree with what Yin-Yang it has to say. I don't know what it has to say so I can't go further into that. But if it means everything carries a bit of it's opposite, that doesn't agree with Buddhism as I know it; especially not with the notion of nirvana.
Metta!
An acceptable bath temperature to an adult, could scald a small baby....
Walking down Oxford street in London, to do some late pre-christmas shopping, I spied a gentleman in shorts and a shirt.
"You're not from these parts, are you?" I asked him.
"No," he replied. "I normally live in Alaska. This to me, is late Spring weather...."
Hey, ZeroGhost, I hope that this little statement of yours is not a Freudian harking back to that saying of Jesus, "Do not cast your pearls before swine, lest they turn upon you, and tear you to pieces". For sure, intellectually, you are light-years ahead of me, at least, and your words may well be wasted on the likes of me, but do consider your words, for the sake of everybody!
I believe the appropriate locatiion for this discussion has been suggested. As I can I will create a thread in itself. As I stated, the subject goes deeper than the OP asked. But I while I might have answered the question somewhat, I am not finished in it's original idea. I would like to illustrate some of the concepts, and that will take time, and other tasks are begging my attention as well. Some of your questions need response too, so this thread needs to branch from the original seed to accommodate. Thanks for your responses.
B1
GM/ZG
Thank you.
Things can slow down but heat has no opposite.
Again, yin may be the opposite of yang but the only opposite of yin yang is no yin yang. If a reference point is needed to create a polar cycle then what is seen as opposites are actually complimentary points of the same cycle. They cannot exist on their own but depend on the entire spectrum. The only opposite of that spectrum is no spectrum, which again, is just a concept.
"giving or feeling a sensation that is felt to be the opposite of hot"
Similar examples would be hard and soft, light and dark.
So yin and yang is pointing to opposites in our experience of the world, and to the tension between them. Yes, of course opposites are relative and dualistic, but they are still opposites.
Cold water can exist, without hot water.
Yin cannot exist without Yang.
Easy to say "hot is opposite to cold".
Is -24C the opposite of 353C?
:thumbup:
Cold and hot are descriptive terms that depend on each other to give them meaning. Something is cold only in relation to something else.
Just like lightness and darkness. We can't say "light" exactly because light is actually something whereas dark isn't. Darkness is only comparative as to the amount of light available. Dark is as close as we get to no light (or pure black). We have light sources but no dark sources. Even black holes don`t give off darkness, they swallow and transform light.
My whole point is that opposites are only good conceptually and do not represent reality. I don`t think we should forget about using them to illustrate points but to remember them for what they are.
:thumbsup:
Compassion stabilizes the candle's base and wisdom throws light onto the room and reveals truth.
Tiny bubbles. They do that to everyone. Thanks. I have more when I can find the thread I thought I started. All I could do was part 1 here.
GM/ZG