Yin and Yang

Yin and Yang





In Chinese culture, Yin and Yang represent the two opposite principlesin nature. Yin characterizes the feminine or negative nature of thingsand yang stands for the masculine or positive side.

Yin and yang are inpairs, such as the moon and the sun, female and male, dark and bright,cold and hot, passive and active, etc. But yin and yang are not staticor just two separated things.

The nature of yinyang lies in interchangeand interplay of the two components. The alternation of day and nightis such an example. The concept of yinyang has a long history.




There are many written records about yinyang, which can be dated backto the Yin Dynasty (about 1400 - 1100 BC) and the Western Zhou Dynasty(1100 - 771 BC).


Yinyang is the basis of Zhouyi (Book of Changes), thejing part of which was written during the Western Zhou.


Yinyang became popular during the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC) and the Warring States (475 - 221 BC).


The principles of yinyang are an important part of Huangdi Neijing(Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine), the earliest Chinese medicalbook, written about 2,000 years ago. They are still important intraditional Chinese medicine and fengshui today.



Here is asummary of the characteristics of yinyang. Yin and yang are opposite innature, but they are part of nature, they rely on each other, and theycan't exist without each other.




The balance of yin and yang isimportant. If yin is stronger, yang will be weaker, and vice versa. Yinand yang can interchange under certain conditions so they are usuallynot yin and yang alone. In other words, yin can contain certain part ofyang and yang can have some component of yin. It is believed thatyinyang exists in

Ontodynamics



Ontodynamics

• God is a Verb
  
• The Metaphysics of Process - Ontodynamics
  
• Esoteric Cosmology - Emanation - page: Emanation - the Emergance of the Many from the One
  
• The Coaction Compass
  

The Metaphysics of Process - Ontodynamics

It is proposed that a truely integral Unified Map of Existence,which explains and (as Ken Wilber would say) honours all experiences,interpretations, perspectives, and aspects of Consciousness and theCosmos, requires not one but four Parameters or States or gradations ofconsciousness and existence, each of which, it is suggested, has itsown dynamic, or ontodynamic.The term Ontodynamics has been independently coined by Stephen Harrison and myself. As I define it, it refers to the dynamic nature and interelations of being (ontos),as opposed to a simple static formulation of koshas, planes, atoms, orwhatever. Reality, rather than being static, is a constant process, a"play of consciousness" (skt. lila), of involution andevolution, the working out of the infinite possibilities of theUnmanifest and Manifest Absolute within the infinite Kosmos.
God is a Verb

Buckminster Fullerfamously said "God is a Verb". And apparently the united church nowteaches its ministers that god is a process. This all comes from A.N.Whitheead's Process Theology. Concerning the Supreme as the cosmos (inconrtrast to the transcendent Absolute) there is an unfolding, doing,aspect to it.Considering the transcendentwe can say that "God" isn't a verb but an adjective (pointing to theunknowable in Itsef) - the Transcendent, the Supreme, The Absolute, theineffable - rather like the Muslim 99 names of God. According to theSufis they represent the original archetypes. But the Activity of theseadjectivities, archetypes, godheads, in the world, constitutes theVerb. And all of these interactions are ultimately nothing but theAbsolute Reality "I" experiencing Itself ("this").And the way this process, or "verb", which is "God", works is through the dynamics of consciousness / being
The Cycle of Existence




What then is the relationship between the Absolute Reality and the world of multiplicity?

Judeo-Christian religious cosmologies are based on a strictly linearview of history and creation. In contrast to this, both the Eastern(Vedantic - e.g. Kashmir Shaivite) and the Neoplatonic cosmologiespresent a vision of a cyclic series of emanation and withdrawl. Thisdoesn't have to be a temporal sequence, in fact it can be seen asatemporal.


Hence a cyclic cosmology does not contradict a linear one,and vice versa. Like physicalism, holism, dualism and monism, these areall different (Relative Truth) ways of looking at the samemulti-dimensional and ineffable (Absolute Truth) Reality.

Regarding the linear or temporal historical cosmos (asadvocated in different ways both by exoteric and esotericJudeo-Christianity and secular science), we will return to that later.The atemporal cyclic cosmology however can be shown as follows:




Absolute and Relative Reality



Being moves between the two modes of unmanifest and manifest,emptiness and form, as described in esoteric teachings. Involution or Emanation(left on diagram) is the way in which things come into being, this isthe process of "creation" (to use the Judeo-Chriostian term,understanding that this is never creation out of nothing), and theconverse of this process is transcendence, reabsorption, or return(right) in which things return to teh Source from which they came (andwhich is their actual true or original nature, and was so all along).


In terms of the Three Truths, the Absolute Truth, which isineffable, goes at the top of the diagram, and both relative truth andrelative error at the bottom, as these pertain to the world ofmultiplicity.

Opposites/Complements - Yin and Yang



Whereas the Absolute in Itself is ineffable,at the relative level - in other words in terms of manifestation andcreation - everything can be described, at the most fundamental level,in terms of polar opposites. Yet these opposites are also at the sametime complementaries, each is necessary for the existence of the other.This is described in the Yin Yang (or Tao) diagram

The Yin-Yang symbol is without doubt one of the most recognisablemetaphysical diagrams. It describes ithe fundamental polarity andinseperability of the polar opposites; the binary pattern of Reality,and its cyclic metamorphes. The black represents yin, matter, earth,receptivity, ending, etc, the white yang, spirit, heaven, creativity,beginning, etc. Note that the white half contains a black dot, theblack half a white dot. This is because yang contains the seed of yin,and yin the seed of yang.


Hence yang becomes yin and yin becomes yang; the basic principle ofmetamorphosis, and fundamental to the Book of Changes (I Ching). The pair yin and yang are also equated with female and male, but thisis simplistic: both male and female contain both yin and yang.


It isalso interesting to consider that the Japanese macrobiotic system usesyin and yang in the opposite way to the Chinese taoists system; e.g.the macrobiotic yin is equivalent in many ways to the Chinese yang, andvice-versa. Thisshows that despite the fundamental cosmic reality of yin and yang,human interpretations differ, according to the line of approach.




From the basic binary unit of reality comes the four (2 x 2) whichtakes us to the mandala, the tetrakys and the quibit. Times two againandwe have the eight trigrams, an important element in Chinese cosmology.


Actually, in view of the importance of the four-fold I see the trigramsas a relatively minor system, and I havent been able to do much withit. 4 x 4 x 4 however (or 2 to the power of 6) gives 64, the number ofhexagramicsymbols that make up the I Ching oracle, and also the number ofpossibleDNA codons.


The way DNA, which is a sort of organic computer (there is even talk of building nano-computers using the DNA molocule), transmits information is through combining any of the four fundamental nucleotidebases (four again) in sets of three, hence 64 possible amino acid sequences.Change is the only constant

<blockquote>"There is nothing permanent except change"

"You cannot step into the same river twice"</blockquote> Heraclitus

<blockquote>"All compounded things are impermanent"</blockquote>Siddharta Buddha

The Buddha, Heraclitus, and the authors of the I Ching ("book ofchanges") were all in agreement on one thing; change is the onlyconstant in the universeCreation is ever a process of flux and becoming, and the onlypermanence is in the unmanifest Absolute (or nirvana). Hence thosereligions and philosophies that teach a permanent and immortal egopersonality in life or after death (e.g. the heaven of many exoteric theistic religions are like this) are in error.

In the cyclic diagram therefore, we have the changeless and unitaryAbsolute at the top of the diagram, and the world of manifestation,multiplicity and change at the bottom.

Unity/Eternity and Multiplicity/Change

Dependent Origination






Whilst emanationexplains how causality works on a "vertical" or inter-hierarchicallevel, "Co-Dependent Origination" or "causal interdependence" (to usethe Buddhist terms) shows how causality works on a "horizontal" level,in which enties of the same hierarchical level interact with each other.In Buddhism, Dependent Origination (Paticcasamuppada inPali) is described in a stylised manner in terms of a stylised seriesof phenomenological states, each of which is the cause or conditionthat generates the next.


All phenomenon arise according to the requiredcasual factors or conditions. i.e.:


1. Ignorance causes karmic activity;
2. Karmic activity causes consciousness;
3. Consciousness causes name and form;
4. Name and form causes the sense organs;
5. The sense organs cause contact;
6. Contact causes feeling;
7. Feeling causes desire and craving;
8. Desire and craving causes grasping;
9. Grasping causes existing;
10. Existing causes birth;
11. Birth causes old age and death;
12. Old age and death causes ignorance (1)



This is illustrated graphically in the "Wheel of Life" Once again, dependent origination, karma, and evolution pertain toworld of multiplicity (or "samsara" as it is called in Buddhism,literally, going around and around, the world of rebirth), and theopposite, teh Absolute Reality, is "nirvana", changeless and perfect,in Western theology the "God of the philosophers" (as oppsoe dto tehanthropomorphic deity of religious faith)




Changelessness/Eternity and Karma and Evolution
Emanation

If atmalogy shows how enties interact with each other, emanationshows how these entities come about in the first place. I argue for theof the Emanation hypothesis on two grounds: firstly it is a centralelement in much of the "perennial philosophy" and secondly it provides the only explanation for how things came to be that is not nonsensical (craetio ex hihilo)or reductionist. Assuming then that emanation is a fact (much as itcontradicts the current physicalist consensus paradigm of the secularWest), a number of specific ontological laws or principles would seemto follow.

These are listed as follows:

Assuming then that emanation is a fact (much as it contradicts thecurrent physicalist consensus paradigm of the secular West), a numberof specific ontological principles would seem to follow.

These arelisted as follows:

Principle of Authentic Reality
Principle of Distinct Hypostases
Principle of Qualitativeness
Principle of Downward Causation
Principle of nondifferentiated ground
Principle of non-diminishment
Principle of Reflection
Principle of Proximity
Principle of Fractalisation

In no way should the above be considered a definitive statement orfinal explanation. These principles are suggested soley to encouragefurther thought and debate. We have a long way to go before a truelyaxiomatic integral theory of everything can be formulated.

Essay on Principles of Emanation | The emanationist worldview

The Hierarchical Ontology (Ontological Gradation)


A central element of my own "Theory of Everything" is what I term "ontological gradation" - the gradation of being (Gk: ontos) from higher (and ultimately from the Absolute, or infinite of being) to lower (deprivation, and the appearance of non-being - e.g. Sri Aurobindo's "Inconscient")Ontological Gradation is also referred to as the "Great Chain of Being", the "Spectrum of Consciousness", and so on. It is the primary parameter or axis along which the hypostases are arranged. Of course there is not a single linear ontological gradation, but rather a Tree by which the One Source or Root becomes many, and even as the later Neoplatonists like Proclus suggest, having become many, reduces to simplicity again in non-being (inconscience) Let us see then how this works.


Beginning with point (1) of the Basic Premises, every datum of experience should be considered without bias, and point (6),the more inclusive explanation is to be preferred, I have chosen what Ifeel to be the most inclusive explanation; something that cansympathetically explain every datum, without rejectiong any as "false".This is the hierarchical ontology (theory of being), which has been proposed by a number of universalists, such as Huston Smith (Smith 1977) and Ken Wilber (Wilber 2000, 2000b, etc).


The diagram on the left shows a simplistic representation of this, using for the sake of example the three hypostrases of Plotinus plus physical realityNote that I certainly am not saying that hierarchy is all that is.


Because the existence of hierarchy automatically assumes itscomplement/polarity/opposite - equality. But we can't just say"everything is equal" either, because some things are not equal. So webegin with hierarchy, more specifically, a Hierarchy of Being (note -it is fashionable nowadays in postmodernist academia to reject"hierarchy", along with "metaphysics". As Ken Wilber points out, eventhose who reject hierarchy still have their own hierarchical values (Wilber 2000, pp.x-xi).


However, when we look at various examples of the hierarchy or "spectrum" or "great chain" of being, we find there is a lot of disagreement regarding its component levels. For example Kashmir Shaivismgives a very different spectrum of being to Theosophy or Kabbalah.Clearly, this explanation is not sufficient to incorporate all datumsof experience.


It might also be asked - hierarchy of what? The answer is Consciousness. This is a hierarchy of states of consciousness (d-SoC in Charles T. Tart's notation), which is the same as saying it is a hierarchy of states of existence, or of being (ontology), since it is suggested here that all these can be equated (Kashmir Shaivism (ref ), and Moshe Kroy's Advaitin Phenomenology (Wilber 2002))

Emanation






If paramology points to the unmanifest Absolute which is complete unity, emanation,or creation in terms of a series of stages or hypostases of theoriginal Absolute, shows how multiplicity comes about out of thatineffable One. A representation of this is shown on the left in termsof the Neoplotanic conception taught by Plotinus. This is the same asthe earlier diagram of hierrachical hypostases, except that now thecyclic relationship of emanation and withdrawl replaces the earliersimplistic one-way arrows.I argue for the Emanationist hypothesis on two grounds: firstly it is a central element in much of the "perennial philosophy" and secondly it provides the only explanation for how things came to be that is not logically nonsensical (creatio ex hihilo) or reductionist. Emanation is also an essential element in ontodynamics, more on which later.
Emanation as the alternative to Dualism and Monism

Exotericunderstanding is often based on pairs of opposites - spirit and matter,body and soul, true and false, saint and sinner, God and creation,being and nonbeing - in other words, dualism. This is a position that I feel is too simplistic to be used to appreciate reality (except in the sense of sub-units, e.g. the yin-yang binary pairs of the I Ching and DNA or particle physics say, which really refers to sets of polarities.)Radical Monism(only the Absolute is Real, or even only a neutral "something" is real)is just as limiting, for it swallows up the diversity of existence in asingle Absolute (e.g. the Advaita Vedantin (and pop-guru-derived) depreciation of the world as "maya") or reduces everything to a single entity like matter or energyOntological Gradation allows us to avoid both extremes. All shadesand stages of being are authentic, and it is possible to map these out,describing the characteristics of each segment or stage or phase of theSpectrum of Being. Indeed, according to the perennial philosophy, ontological gradation of at least a simple form (three or four levels) is basic to all pre-modern thought.
Hypostases and Yin and Yang

Normally, the Neoplatonic emanationist paradigm (also characteristicof Sufi, Kabbalistic, Kashmir Shaivite, Theosophical, and Wilberianteachings) is rather different from the Taoist/I Ching Yin-Yangconception. Yin and Yang are the two polarities that emerge from theoriginal unity (Tao), just as in Tantra Shiva and Shakti emerge fromthe original Supreme Consciousness or Supreme Shiva, in Kabbalah Hesedand Gevurah, emerge from Keter or En Sof, and so on. The hypostases are"vertical", the polarities "horizontal". However, if we think of Yangas Heaven or Spirit, and Yin as matter or Earth, that implies a"vertical" and hypostasis-like element. Moreover, in asmuch as allpolarities and dualities can be described in terms of Yin and Yang,this would also logically apply to the hierarchical hypostases as well.Iif we say that, like Arthur Koestler's holons (see Janus, a summing up), the hypostases are "two-faced entities", in that every hypostases can be considered yang in relation to the one which is beneath it, and yin in relation to the one above it, we get a diagram that combines both hierarchy and polarity:

Hypostases, cycle of emanation and transcendence, and yin and yang

diagram by M.Alan Kazlev, Creative Commons Attribution License 2005


Multiple Emanation and Transcendence

The above diagrams present a strictly linear (or linear-cyclic) andsequential cosmology. But there is no reasion why every level orhypostasis cannot connect to every other hypostasis. If we show it thisway, we get a rather more complex representation, as follows:
Multiply interacting hypostases, cycles, and yin and yang

diagram by M.Alan Kazlev, Creative Commons Attribution License 2005
Can we go still further? So far we have only a single hierarchy,albeit one that is myuultifaceted in its details and interconnections.But the mono-linear representation, which is standard in most esotericteachings, as well as with more recent thinkers like Edward Haskell(Unified Science) and Ken Wilber (Integral theory), suffers from acertain inflexibility, because it assumes that every progression orascent in consciousness will pass through the exact same series ofstages, and the accounts that people give of their experiences withvarious non-ordinary states of consciousness paint a far more complexpicture than this. Moreover, if there is only a single "spectrum ofbeing", it is impossible to correlate the different esoteric teachings,because there will always be things that don't match up. Hence, thesituation is, as always, more complex then the conventionalrepresentation takes it to be. Which brings us to the next proposition.
Monadology

In the century the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz came up with ametaphysical theory called Monadology (after his book of the same name- there are a number of copies on-line: e.g. here, here, here, and here)in which he posits that all that exist are an indefinite number ofsimple (by which he means without consisting of parts) entities called Monads(para.1). These are eternal, individual, mental or spiritual atoms soto speak. There is no such thing as physical space or external objects;rather, each monad experiences the world from its own point of view,and the totality of all those experiences is the universe. However themonads are unable to interact with each other (para. 7. "The monadshave no windows through which anything may come in or go out") but alltheir respective experiences are synchronised through a pre-established harmony(para.78). nterestingly Blavatsky refers to the higher spiritual Selfin man (atma-buddhi) as a "monad", perhaps combining Leibnitz withPythagoras, for whom the monad was the primal entity to come into being.

A monadology with similarities to that of Leibniz was independently developed by Ken Wilber, who of course calls his monads holons.For Wilber holons likewise are the only things that exist, areteleological, conscious, and so on. However unlike Leibnitz's monads,Wilber's holons do have "windows" in that they interact with otherholons, and they are not "simple" because each holon consists of holonsbeneath it, and so on to infinity. And wheras Leibniz solves theproblem of the interaction of mind and matter that bedevils Descartes'system, Wilber seems to take a step backwards by intrenching theCartesian duality of of mind and body (interiors and exteriors) in hisfour-quadrant holons. (i will have more to say on this later)I would like to propose a new monadology.
We begin with the monistic understanding that all that exists is the Absolute Reality, which is infinite, eternal, without boundaries (see this pagefor a philosophical thesis on this (still needs some work)). Accordingto Kashmir Shaivism, this Absolute contemplates (or simply reflectsupon, or experiences) itself, thus resulting in the thought "I am This"and creating the original duality of Absolute ("I") and its power ofcreation ("this), and hence all other polarities and dualities.
Everything that exists is a "self" or Aspect or reflection of theAbsolute, and there is nothing that is not-Absolute and hence not-Self,then the not-Self includes all other selves apart from one's own Self.Because they are not one's own Self (but other selves), they areexperienced as "Without" (Teilhard) or "exteriors" (Wilber - the righthalf of his diagram) rather than the "Within" or interior orsubjectivity.This gives us the "participative paradigm" defined by John Heron (Heron 1996) and previously referred to.

I would extend this by saying that because everything that exists isa Self (and/or an aspect of the Supreme Self / Absolute Reality), thisrelation of Knower and Known extends even to so-called "inanimate"objects. This is the opposite of the depersonalisation andobjectification of things that one finds in physicalist-materialist,naive postmodernist relativist, and exoteric religious literalistworldviews.
The Co-action Compass

Using a standard mandala as a cosmological "map" means a "static" timeless, or cyclic (like the famous "Wheel of Rebirth") diagram. But we also need something that can convey process and evolution as well. Hence the "Co-action Compass", a cybernetic feedback diagram that forms the basis of the Unified Science paradigm presented by Edward Haskell and his associates. An example of this diagram on the cover of their book Full Circle - The Moral Force of Unified Science is shown here:


This diagram (and Unified Science in general) is based on thepremise that with any two interacting factors, one will have acontrolling role (this is represented by the y axis, and can beconsidered "yang") and the other will be the "work component" (the xaxis, corresponding to yin).

These two elements can interact in a waythat benefits, harms, or is neutral to, one, both, or neither.The result is a matrix of 9 possible interactions, which arerepresented graphically as the co-action compass. The following diagramshows how these 9 possible relationships determine the 9 fundamentalstates of the co-action compass:


Diagram © Timothy Wilken - see Future Positive - Edward Haskell
The following diagram shows how even the co-action between theopposite poles of only one of the above axii can produce a whole rangeof situations.


Looking at the The Co-action Compass, it seems that the fundamental principle is not Y or X, but the relation between the two.So we have again a participative paradigm, in which the interaction ofGovernor (Y) and Work Component (X) determines the outcome of the jointentity that the two comprise.

So the fundamental unit is not a spiritual atom or a holon, butrather the interaction between two (or more) entities (beings, systems,whatever(. And each entity is itself not a static unit but aninteraction between other entities (which may simply be the X/Yin and Y/Yangcomponents of its own make-up) Whether an entity or element is more yinor more yang is determined by its position on the quadontologicalmandala. So not only is, say, the Divine World (level 4 of the verticalplanes (bottom) ontocline/quadrant) yang in relation to the lower ordense material world (level 8 of the same quadrant), but it is alsoYang in relation to the Collective Being (level 6 of the holarchical(top) ontocline/quadrant), the Inner Being (level 5 of the inner andouter (right) ontocline/quadrant) for example.

Thus every phenomenonand manifets reality can be understood in terms of a yin and yanginteraction, leading to either an entropic, a neutral, or a syntropicoutcome for one or both units.

The result of this "Tao of Physics"esque "dance of Shiva" typereasoning is that fundamentally everything that exists are a network ofbootstrapped interactions of other interactions which in turn consistof other interactions (like the dance of virtual particles). Hence wehave a "monadology" in which the monads are not entities but"processes". Being in the sense of a noun that is also a verb.