Philosophy: Opposites
Philosophy: The Idea of Opposites
Observing nature, we notice that for every action there is its opposite. Opposed to Light, there is Dark. With Female, there is Male. For every Up, there is a Down. Over/Under, Stop/Go, Wet/Dry, Mountain/Valley, and so on. Rather than simple opposition, we might think of these forces as “paired”. We cannot conceive of just one side of the pair; the other must logically exist. The Taiji symbol is a classic Chinese philosophical way of expressing a profound truth: to the human point of view, our natural world reveals itself in opposites.
Within the symbol, the opposites are called Yin (the lower area, corresponding to Female, Under, Stop, Dry, Valley, etc.) and Yang (the upper area, corresponding to Male, Over, Go, Wet, Mountain, etc.) A Yang force is always paired with its Yin opposite; one side is no “better” than its paired opposite. Indeed, neither side makes sense without its opposite.
There is no one state that can be the best for all times or places. Sometimes it is better to lower ourselves, sometimes we should rise. Sometimes we rest, at other times we are active. Within each of us there are passive and aggressive forces, that may be appropriately expressed in varying situations. For example, it may not be “polite” to push someone in everyday life, but what if you suddenly saw that a friend was about to be hit by a truck and a push from you would save her? In the changed context, “polite” suddenly carries no meaning. But the push is a lifesaver.
The Taiji symbol demonstrates this ever-changing nature of circumstance in the flow of life. We are finite beings and tend to see the world in terms of oppositions. Often, whole philosophies are created that restrict our behavior to categorical “shoulds” and “nevers”. But sooner or later we discover that such philosophies lose their usefulness in the face of the natural change in the world. We forget that with happiness, there must be sadness. Just because we feel energetic at present is no reason to foolishly exhaust ourselves by working or playing for too long. Sooner or later we must rest. This is the natural way of the world, and we ignore it at our pain. It is our tendency to see opposites—and to live our lives without understanding their consequences—that seems to rule us.
