Hi i’m a bit confused about what Yin / Yang means.
The usual description in books and websites is to say Yin: feminine, receptive, passive, yielding Yang: masculine, active, organising etc
But what does that mean? That feminine, receptive and passive things are examples of Yin things, or that those are abstract qualities of things that are Yin, or of Yin itself?
I don’t think females are necessarily receptive and passive while males are active and organising or whatever. In fact I’ve seen a lot of evidence to the contrary. So whats the dope?
Actually they are demonstrating opposites. Yin/Yang are representative of the necessary oppposites that create a balance. Good/Bad, Light/Dark, Male/Female in your case it means feminine/masculine, active/passive. Without opposites the other would not exist. It is said that in all things living there is an equal amount of extremes and the key to a happy life is to balance all these and live in moderation. ie. balance an exciting pastime with a quiet one, do good for others as well as yourself, eat a balanced diet, excercise and relax, work and play.
AHHHHHH…boy I can be blonde sometimes. This topic was covered in my Western Civ class. These analogies were developed long ago. I understand that in todays world it may not be the case that women are passive, or that genders are typically one way or another. But for the time that Yin/Yang was defined it was the case and these traits were associated with benerally being male or female. (It was probably a male who defined them in the first place) (Just as it was a male that invented the bra)
The yin and yang represent all the opposite principles one finds in the universe. Under yang are the principles of maleness, the sun, creation, heat, light, Heaven, dominance, and so on, and under yin are the principles of femaleness, the moon, completion, cold, darkness, material forms, submission, and so on. Each of these opposites produce the other: Heaven creates the ideas of things under yang, the earth produces their material forms under yin, and vice versa; creation occurs under the principle of yang, the completion of the created thing occurs under yin, and vice versa, and so on. This production of yin from yang and yang from yin occurs cyclically and constantly, so that no one principle continually dominates the other or determines the other. All opposites that one experiences—health and sickness, wealth and poverty, power and submission—can be explained in reference to the temporary dominance of one principle over the other. Since no one principle dominates eternally, that means that all conditions are subject to change into their opposites.
I’m a Taoist, so I may be able to shed some light on the topic.
It’s important to keep in mind that Yin and Yang are not opposite forces… they are different charges of the same force, so to speak.
It’s also important to remember that all males have Yin properties, and can even be Yin dominant, and all females have Yang qualities and may be Yang dominant.
The forces basically chase each other in a circle, creating balance and harmony, seen as the ideal state of all things.
One final note of importance is that each side of the Yin/Yang contains a little piece of the other as a little dot of the opposite color. This is the graphic reminder that the forces are really one and the same.