The seeds of our own destruction.............

Per yin and yang

Shall we grow weeds of misery
Or our own resurrection - ?

I understand about Yin and Yang, and I like your reminder, edgar; however I wrote that poem to remind myself that we are responsible for everything that we do in life. No place else to fix the blame. Of course, others inspire that feeling from time to time, and it's the old, never dying "nature/nurture" theme, but not this time, for me, anyway.



Notice that the symbol is black and white with no hint nor shade of color.

As ye reap . . .

Incidentally, I read in a book that was written in the 1950s (and so can't find it now) that the yin/yang symbol originally has bridges that connect the dots to the opposite sides. If that is so, I have not been able to find anything about that in a search.

Seek and ye shall find?

There are those who make others sow,
While they reap the best of the crop.
They laugh, and abuse, and deny
The slavery which they bestow.

Hey Letty - that's a great yin yang image

i've been into the symbol for a little while now.

(I always like to read your poems, too )


endy

endy, you are delightful. What does that new avatar mean? You just reminded me that I need to look further into that black and white circle. Thanks, honey.

Hi Letty

my avatar is like a tattoo a friend had (he's died).
He always made me feel I could be brave -you know that type of friend?

Also, I think the yin yang is a powerful, anti-fascist symbol

Also I meditate on it

It has so many aspects doesn't it?

Some people see it as an anti-racist symbol and I can see that.
Others see it as good and bad, each with a tiny bit of one inside the other (makes sense to me)

But I've been thinking about life and death a lot recently.
And I had a strange notion come to me while contemplating death. (Shhh, don't tell anyone - they already think I'm nuts but) I suddenly thought, hold on a minute they are the same thing

I mean, like the yin yang, life and death combine to make a whole. In each we carry the other. Death is with us all through live and into death we will carry something from this life. To be honest, this feeling, which convinced me that death is as important as life (in fact IS life, as life IS death) and brings with it a 'completeness' and 'wholeness' made me feel better - and less like ending my life (a brief consideration) - so already the yin yang has helped me by showing me something

(strangely, the night I was most down, I looked here and saw the title of your thread (how apt i thought) opened it and nearly fell off my chair when I saw that giant symbol staring back at me) : )

it really was very strange

anyway, thank you for that Letty (and edgar)

Peace
Endy

I was talking with the Lovely Bride about yin and yang. For her it is all about
balance and completeness. Light balances darkness; male balances female;
heat balances cold. Similarly light is incomplete without dark as male without
female and heat without cold. She said she always resented it that male,
light, and heat are yin while female, dark and cold are yang.

She finds it curious that China with its emphasis on only one child has turned
its back on the ancient wisdom as people overwhelmingly have sons, aborting
daughters. This is producing a society that is unbalanced and incomplete.

She has read up quite a bit on Chinese herbal medicine. The philosophy of
yin and yang hold great sway there with the yin of one herb carefully
balanced by the yang of another, all to bring the body to a state of balance
and completeness.

We did a study on China in the second grade class I worked in last year. Our books described the yin-yang much the way that George's wife did. Light-dark, wet-dry, cold-hot. Each opposite either represents the male or the female.

George, thank you so much for the explanation of the yin yang symbol. Littlek, we appreciate your contribution as well.

Endy, I am just like you, dear. Often I will feel down and listless and then one little thing will come to mind or one amulet or icon will pop up from nowhere and produce a peace that is difficult to fathom. Such was the case with a tiny gold guardian angel that my son gave me. Seeing it, was like the "peace that passeth understanding." All creative people are a bit nuts, dear.

http://books.google.com/books?id=0pPX2fsCnNAC&pg=PA125&lpg=PA125&dq=philip

Here is the explanation of yin/yang to which I refered on my earlier post. Click on preview the book and go to page 125

Ahhh - there's hope for me yet then :wink:


I've done some (minor) research on the Yin Yang (looking at ancient Chinese and Taoist philosophy). Here's some of what I found:
(It's rather long - but I had a bit of spare time and was interested - thought I'd share it)


Every opposite in the Universe

Originally Yin Yang describes the two sides of a mountain (with the sun on one side and shadow on the other - bringing to mind the planet Earth itself and Day/Night). Always in a state of flux - as the sun moves around the mountain and shadows move with it, so the Yin become Yang and Yang Yin.
Originally, Yin Yang evoked the spirit of opposites. That is everything opposite. Light/dark … Male/female… movement/inertia…. good/bad…left/right… whatever.

It has been the West who have reduced it's meaning to 'male/female' (Carl Jung whose work on symbols I admire, is an example of this).


Harmony

The Yin Yang is about harmony - about the two opposites melding and contributing to the other - not about clear cut Good 'n' Bad.
Apparently the late Heath ledger (actor) entered the spirit of the Ying Yang in creating his 'Joker' character for the Dark Knight.
Nothing is all bad and nothing is all good. there is always one within the other - if we can only find/see it.

The two fish - one black one white - fit together comfortably to create peace, harmony and wholeness


This from the Taoist teachings
by Ted Kardash




Yin-Yang - The Principle of Harmony and Change
Taoism's central organizing principle is the interconnectedness of all life with its flow of continuous change. Nowhere is this idea expressed in such a unique and exquisite manner as in the concept of yin-yang, which describes the underlying unity of life through the interplay of opposites.

Taoist writings state that all things and all processes contain two primal energies or forces. These two basic aspects of manifestation often are described as masculine and feminine, light and dark, negative and positive, creative and receptive. The original meaning of the term signified the light and dark sides of a mountain. Our common English-language expression, "there are two sides to everything," expresses this concept quite succinctly.

From a Taoist point of view, however, these two polar opposites are not seen as distinctly separate or in conflict, but rather as interdependent and complementary. In actuality, one creates the other. "Is there a difference between yes and no?", Lao Tzu, one of Taoism's immortal sages, asks. "Is there a difference between good and evil?" His reply is that "Under heaven all can see beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil."

Chuang Tzu, another legendary Taoist sage, states with delightful wit and humor: "Everything can be a ?'that'; everything can be a ?'this.' Therefore, ?'that' comes from ?'this' and ?'this' comes from ?'that' - which means ?'that' and ?'this' give birth to one another. When there is no more separation between ?'that' and ?'this', it is called being one with the Tao."

These two sages are telling us is that the seeming opposites of life - the "yes" and "no," the "good" and "bad," are merely expressions of a deeper underlying unity, the connectedness that characterizes life in all its forms and processes. They advise us to not get caught in these apparent contradictions, rigidly choosing one side against the other. We are urged, rather, to perceive them in their relatedness, to experience how one grows out of the other. In so doing we can partake in the reconciling of opposites, "in blunting the sharpness and untangling the knot," as Lao Tzu states. Nature's tendency is to constantly move to a state of harmony and balance.

The idea of change leading to harmonious balance underlines another aspect of yin-yang.

These two polar forces are not static or rigidly locked in battle with one another.

Just as one side of the mountain does not remain sunny all day, but gradually becomes shady as the sun moves across the sky and lights the other side, so also do the two forces of yin and yang constantly move and interact. When one energy becomes full and complete, then the other begins to grow and ascend.

"That which shrinks must first expand. That which fails must first be strong. That which is cast down must first be raised." Lao Tzu is telling us that life is a process. There is constant change, one thing flowing into another, one thing becoming another. Furthermore, within this constant change is a recognizable cyclical pattern, like the alternating of day and night or the turning of the seasons. For all things there is a natural expansion and contraction, on both the most minute and grandest levels. It is the breathing pattern of life itself.

What implications does this have for us on a personal level? How can we apply the concept of yin-yang in our daily lives?

For the past two thousand years traditional Western thinking has been dominated by a dualistic, either-or approach: either something is good, or it is bad; desirable or undesirable; someone is an ally or an enemy. We perceive experiences to be either positive or negative and we expend much energy in trying to eradicate what we consider to be negative. From a Taoist point of view, this is like trying to erase the negative current from electricity because it is not "positive."

Because we perceive ourselves as separate from others, we often find ourselves in opposition to them, locked into "this" and "that," merely because of skin color, language, or beliefs. Taking these "differences" for the way things "really are" leads to breakdowns in relating, arguing, fighting, and even killing. All because of "this" and "that." We do the same with ourselves. We dislike or disown parts of ourselves and struggle to change, not trusting that our own inner nature, as an expression of the Tao, will of its own accord move towards a harmonious balance.

I found this quote particularly helpful

"Bad luck becomes good luck and crisis contains the opportunity for growth. We can choose to cooperate with this complimentary set of opposites by not denying, suppressing, or struggling against unwanted discomfort or pain, but rather by accepting all facets of our existence, "good" and "bad," as the natural flow of the Tao."

Interesting eh?

Strange enough- I've always had a crazy love of mountains and been drawn to them - so the Yin Yang fits with me (as a concept) right from the start.
After reading up on it I'm even more convinced that it can help to promote harmony and is therefore, anti-fascist in design.

Even researching and writing about it has had quite an affect.

Hope that's of some interest to someone.


source
http://www.jadedragon.com/tao_heal/taopart3.html

******************************************************************

Hey Edgar - thanks for putting up that link -if I can just find the right place to click….


Letty - about your golden angel. I understand exactly what you mean.
(And I say that knowing every experience is different - I mean, I understand the peace bit.)

cheers

Click on Preveiew this book, then click on the chapter that contains page 126 and scroll to that page

i've got 'preview unavailable'

Maybe because i'm in the UK
??

i did a search on the page for 'preview this book' - Nothing
None of them are available to me

i can probably find it somewhere else though.

cheers Edgar

Endy, just the other day, I couldn't find my checkbook. Immediately I thought the worst because that happened to me once before. A young man had delivered Italian to me the previous night, and I immediately called the restaurant from which I had placed the order. I felt terrible thinking that the kid might have taken it, so I soft pedaled the query saying that I am certain he might have picked it up by mistake when he gathered his delivery materials.

For some reason, I started walking from room to room saying out loud, the patron saint of lost things;the patron saint of lost things. I decided to try the restaurant one more time. When I opened the gigantic phone book to locate the phone number, there was my checkbook. I had never heard of this saint.

Saint Anthony-the patron saint of things lost.

Wow - this kind of thing i understand

I've never been religious, but someone gave me a St Christopher on a chain once when i was going away. I'm not too keen on jewelry (on blokes, anyway, unless the type worn by natives in the amazon jungle or somewhere) but i promised to wear it.

One night as i was getting ready to have a shower after a particularly long day i realised the chain and pendant were gone. I'd lost it. I looked all around and through my clothes - but couldn't find it. I hated that. It felt like a bad omen.

The shower i was allocated was communal - i don't know how many blokes had passed through since i'd used it that morning - but many and all types, most of them not my countrymen - yet there was the pendant and chain hanging up, waiting for me.

I wore it 'religiously' after that : )

***
Your Saint Anthony feels more appropriate at present, i have to say

Letty - This is for you. (From memory - but one of those corny, but lyric and sentimental poems that I do love.)


The night has a thousand eyes
and the day but one
Yet the light of the bright world dies
with the setting sun

The mind has a thousand eyes
and the heard but one
Yet the light of a whole life dies
when love is done.



Thanks for remembering

georgeob 1, Welcome back. I love that lyric, Irish. Thank you. Hope that Endy is still on our forum.