Yinyang yin-yang is one of the dominant concepts shared by different schools throughout the history of Chinese philosophy. Just as with many other Chinese philosophical notions, the influences of yinyang are easy to observe, but its conceptual meanings are hard to define. Despite the differences in the interpretation, application, and appropriation of yinyang , three basic themes underlie nearly all deployments of the concept in Chinese philosophy: The chilliness comes from heaven while the warmness comes from the earth.

The interaction of these two establishes he harmony , so it gives birth to things. In none of these conceptions of yinyang is there a valuational hierarchy, as if yin could be abstracted from yang or vice versa , regarded as superior or considered metaphysically separated and distinct. Instead, yinyang is emblematic of valuational equality rooted in the unified, dynamic, and harmonized structure of the cosmos. As such, it has served as a heuristic mechanism for formulating a coherent view of the world throughout Chinese intellectual and religious history.

In these inscriptions, yin and yang simply are descriptions of natural phenomena such as weather conditions, especially the movement of the sun. There is sunlight during the day yang and a lack of sunlight at night yin.

Hun and po

According to the earliest comprehensive dictionary of Chinese characters ca. Peasants depended on sunlight for lighting and their daily life routines. When the sun came out, they would go to the field to work; when the sun went down, they would return home to rest. This sun-based daily pattern evidently led to a conceptual claim: In their earliest usages, yin and yang existed independently and were not connected.

The first written record of using these two characters together appears in a verse from the Shijing Book of Songs: This effect of the sun exists at the same time over the hill. According to Sima Tan Ssu-ma Tan , c. In other words, the yinyang school was concerned with methods of divination or astronomy disciplines that were not distinct from one another in early China, as elsewhere in the ancient world and the calendrical arts which entailed study of the four seasons, eight locations, twelve du [measures] and twenty-four shijie [time periods].

However, none of his works have survived. By the Han dynasty B. Wuxing is used as a set of numerological classifiers and explains the configuration of change on various scales.

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According to this interpretation, yin and yang are seen as qi in both yin and yang forms operating in the universe. There are six heavenly influences [ qi ] which descend and produce the five tastes, go forth in the five colours, and are verified in the five notes; but when they are in excess, they produce the six diseases. Those six influences are denominated the yin , the yang , wind, rain, obscurity, and brightness.

In their separation, they form the four seasons; in their order, they form the five elementary terms. When any of them is in excess, they ensure calamity. An excess of the yin leads to diseases of cold; of the yang , to diseases of heat. Here, yin and yang are the qi of the universe. These qi flow within the natural as well as the human worlds. They are the basic fabric of existence:. Heaven and earth have their regular ways, and men like these for their pattern, imitating the brilliant bodies of Heaven, and according with the natural diversities of the Earth.

Heaven and Earth produce the six atmospheric conditions [ qi ], and make use of the five material elements. Those conditions and elements become the five tastes, are manifested in the five colours, and displayed in the five notes. When they are in excess, there ensue obscurity and confusion, and people lose their proper nature… There were mildness and gentleness kindness and harmony, in imitation of the producing and nourishing action of Heaven. There are love and hatred, pleasure and anger, grief and joy, produced by the six atmosphere conditions [ qi ].

Therefore the sage kings carefully imitated these relations and analogies in forming ceremonies , to regulate those six impulses…When there is no failure in the joy and grief, we have a state in harmony with the nature of Heaven and Earth, which consequently can endure long. Thus qi , a force arising from the interplay between yin and yang , becomes a context in which yinyang is seated and functions. Yinyang as qi provides an explanation of the beginning of the universe and serves as a building block of the Chinese intellectual tradition.

In many earlier texts, one may observe how yinyang generates a philosophical perspective on heaven, earth and human beings. Chapter 42 of the Laozi says that "everything is embedded in yin and embraces yang ; through chong qi [vital energy] it reaches he [harmony].

Yinyang (Yin-yang) | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The interpretation of yinyang as qi conceives yinyang as a dynamic and natural form of flowing energy, a complementary in the primordial potency of the universe. The Huainanzi offers more detailed explanation of the cosmological process of yin and yang:. When heaven and earth were formed, they divided into yin and yang. Yang is generated [ sheng ] from yin and yin is generated from yang.

Sometimes there is life, sometimes there is death, that brings the myriad things to completion. This process also explains the beginning of human life. When qi moved, the clear and light rose to be heaven and the muddy and heavy fell to become earth. When these two qi interacted and attained the stage of harmony he , human life began. This shows that everything is made from the same materials and difference relies on the interaction.

Qi also takes on various forms and is convertible from one form to another with order and pattern. The concept of yinyang supplies a unitary vision of heaven, earth and human beings and makes the world intelligible in terms of a resonance between human beings and the universe. The Guoyu Discourses of the States describes how earthquakes took place at the confluence of the Jing, Wei, and Lou rivers during the second year of Duke You of the western Zhou dynasty.

A certain Boyang Fu claims that the Zhou empire is doomed to collapse, explaining that. If its order vanishes people will be disoriented. Yang was stuck and could not get out, yin was suppressed and could not evaporate, so an earthquake was inevitable. Now the earthquakes around the three rivers are due to yang losing its place and yin being pressed down. Yang is forsaken under yin so the source of rivers has been blocked. If the foundation of rivers is blocked the country will definitely collapse. Discourse of the States Human beings, especially political leaders, must align their virtuous actions with the morally-oriented universe.

If they follow and harmonize with shun the order and patterns of the universe, they will be rewarded with prosperity and flourishing, but if they go against and conflict with ni it, they will be punished with disasters and destruction.


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Whether one engages in shun or ni depends upon whether yin and yang are in a state of balance. Thus, yinyang provides a heuristic outlook for human understanding as well as ethical guidance for achieving harmony in action. As chapter 8 of the Huainanzi claims:. Yinyang embodies the harmony of heaven and earth, manifests the forms of myriad things, contains qi to transform the things and completes various kinds of things; yinyang extends and penetrates to the deepest level; begins in emptiness then becomes full and moves in boundless lands.

Yinyang also has been understood as some concrete substance xingzhi , according to which yixing and yangxing define everything in the universe. Yang was identified with the sun and yin with the moon:. Heaven and earth correlate with vast and profound; four seasons correlate with change and continuity [ biantong ]; the significance of yin and yang correlate with sun and moon; the highest excellence [ zhide ] correlates the goodness of easy and simple. The Guanzi, an important work of the Huang-Lao school, discusses this view along the same lines: This xingzhi interpretation materializes the concept of yinyang in some concrete contexts and shows that the universe is orderly, moral and gendered.

The pattern of the world is written in a gendered language. Yinyang is something one can see, feel, and grasp through the senses. For example, in the Liji Book of Ritual , music represents the he harmony of heaven and earth, while li ritual represents the order of heaven and earth: The harmony of yinyang receives the myriad things. According to Dong Zhongshu, B. Therefore, there is an intrinsic connection between tian and human beings through the movement of yin and yang.

Yinyang is an essential vehicle for interactions between heaven and human beings: When it is among human beings it is displayed itself as like, dislike, happy and mad, when it is in heaven it is seen as warm, chilly, cold and hot. Men, embodying yang , should remain in seclusion. Women, embodying yin , should appear in public. He even requests all married couples to copulate ouchu to secure more yinyang intercourse.

It is also important during this time to make women happy.


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Needham and Lu The meaning 'soul' has probably been transferred from the moon since men must have been aware of lunar phases long before they had developed theories on the soul. Chinese scholars have variously interpreted these two terms as lunar quarters or fixed days, and Shaughnessy According to Hu Shih The table below shows translation equivalents from some major Chinese-English dictionaries.

Both Chinese hun and po are translatable as English " soul " or " spirit ", and both are basic components in "soul" compounds. In the following examples, all Chinese-English translation equivalents are from DeFrancis Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen , eminent historians of science and technology in China , The hun is Yang, luminous, and volatile, while the po is Yin, somber, and heavy.

Two earlier 6th century contexts used the po soul alone. Two later sixth-century Zuozhuan contexts used po together with the hun soul.

Yinyang (Yin-yang)

When a friend asked Zi Chan to explain ghosts, he gave what Yu calls "the locus classicus on the subject of the human soul in the Chinese tradition. They go on in this way, growing in etherealness and brightness, till they become thoroughly spiritual and intelligent. His clan also was a great one, and his connexions [sic] were distinguished. Compare the translation of Needham and Lu, who interpret this as an early Chinese discourse on embryology. When a foetus begins to develop, it is due to the [ po ].

When this soul has given it a form then comes the Yang part, called hun. This year both our ruler and [Shusun] are likely to die. The essential vigor and brightness of the mind is what we call the [ hun ] and the [ po ]. When these leave it, how can the man continue long? Hun and po souls, explains Yu Death is thought to follow inevitably when the hun and the p'o leave the body.

We have reason to believe that around this time the idea of hun was still relatively new. O soul, come back! Why have you left your old abode and sped to the earth's far corners, deserting the place of your delight to meet all those things of evil omen? In the east you cannot abide. There are giants there a thousand fathoms tall, who seek only for souls to catch, and ten suns that come out together, melting metal, dissolving stone …. In the south you cannot stay. There the people have tattooed faces and blackened teeth, they sacrifice flesh of men, and pound their bones to paste ….

For the west holds many perils: The Moving Sands stretch on for a hundred leagues. You will be swept into the Thunder's Chasm and dashed in pieces, unable to help yourself In the north you may not stay. There the layered ice rises high, and the snowflakes fly for a hundred leagues and more…. Climb not to heaven above. For tigers and leopards guard the gates, with jaws ever ready to rend up mortal men …. Go not down to the Land of Darkness, where the Earth God lies, nine-coiled, with dreadful horns on his forehead, and a great humped back and bloody thumbs, pursuing men, swift-footed Calling this southern hypothesis "quite possible", Yu The Chuci uses hun 65 times and po 5 times 4 in hunpo , which the Chuci uses interchangeably with hun , Brashier Ancient Chinese generally believed that the individual human life consists of a bodily part as well as a spiritual part.

The physical body relies for its existence on food and drink produced by the earth. The spirit depends for its existence on the invisible life force called ch'i , which comes into the body from heaven. In other words, breathing and eating are the two basic activities by which a man continually maintains his life. But the body and the spirit are each governed by a soul, namely, the p'o and the hun. It is for this reason that they are referred to in the passage just quoted above as the bodily-soul hsing-p'o and the breath-soul hun-ch'i respectively.

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The Yin po and Yang hun were correlated with Chinese spiritual and medical beliefs. The liver stores the blood, and the blood houses the hun. When the vital energies of the liver are depleted, this results in fear; when repleted, this results in anger. When the vital energies of the lungs are depleted, then the nose becomes blocked and useless, and so there is diminished breath; when they are repleted, there is panting, a full chest, and one must elevate the head to breathe.

The Lingshu Jing Brashier Han medical texts reveal that hun and po departing from the body does not necessarily cause death but rather distress and sickness. During the Han Dynasty , the belief in hun and po remained prominent, although there was a great diversity of different, sometimes contradictory, beliefs about the afterlife Hansen