“The yin-yang principle [is] a natural phenomena.”(I Ching, p. 256) Like male and female, day and night, life and death, they are opposites that become complimentary when they interact.(I Ching, p.265) “They oppose each other and yet also compliment each other.”(I Ching, pp.255-256) To “hold to the principle of the Golden Mean…displays the truth of the complementary nature of yin and yang. Yin is yielding; yang is firm. The ancients thought that being too firm in one’s character would lead to difficulty in dealing with people. If one was not firm enough, one would find it difficult to deal with the course of life. Proceeding should be [balanced], stable, gradual, and steady.”(I Ching, p,296) “Yin and yang, the two primary and fundamental forces in the universe…They are opposite but mutually complementary. The ancient Chinese believed that too much yang and too little yin is too hard, without elasticity and likely to be broken. Too much yin and too little yang is too soft, without spirit and likely to become inert. Yin and yang must coordinate and support each other.”(I Ching, p.43)
“They understood that in a perfect situation there is still some imperfection.”(486) “The sun and moon tell us that within the yang there is yin, and within the yin there is yang.”(I Ching. P. 256)
“The mutual influence of male and female is a natural as well as social phenomenon." Which refers to masculine and feminine, not necessarily male and female; such relationship may be same-sex, and they may even be within the same person. "Nevertheless, for this kind of relationship to endure, both parties must be selfless, truthful, and humble. Otherwise they won’t be able to communicate with or enjoy each other and be accepted.”(I Ching, p. 264) Only “When people communicate sincerely and truthfully, harmony is created, and things will be achieved easily and smoothly.”(I Ching, p.121)
Then “their mutual relationship comes from the core of their hearts, because they are complementary yin and yang.”(I Ching, p.123)
Virginia Woolf recalled this ancient wisdom beautifully in her classic book, A Room of One’s Own:
“What does one mean by ‘the unity of the mind,’ I pondered, for clearly the mind has so great a power of concentrating at any point at any moment that it seems to have no single state of being. It can separate itself from the people in the street, for example, and think of itself as apart from them, at an upper window looking down on them. Or it can think with other people spontaneously, as, for instance, in a crowd waiting to hear some piece of news read out. It can think back through its fathers or through its mothers, as I have said that a woman writing thinks back through her mothers. Again if one is a woman one is often surprised by a sudden splitting off of consciousness, say in walking down Whitehall, when from being the natural inheritor of that civilization, she becomes, on the contrary, outside of it, alien and critical. Clearly the mind is always altering its focus, and bringing the world into different perspectives. But some of these states of mind seem, even if adopted spontaneously, to be less comfortable than others. In order to keep oneself continuing in them one is unconsciously holding something back, and gradually the repression becomes an effort. But there may be some state of mind in which one could continue without effort because nothing is required to be held back. And this perhaps, I thought, coming in from the window, is one of them. For certainly when I saw the couple get into the taxi-cab the mind felt as if, after being divided, it had come together again in a natural fusion. The obvious reason would be that it is natural for the sexes to co-operate. One has a profound, if irrational, instinct in favor of the theory that the union of man and woman makes for the greatest satisfaction, the most complete happiness. But the sight of the two people getting into the taxi and the satisfaction it gave me made me also ask whether there are two sexes in the mind corresponding to the two sexes in the body, and whether they also require to be united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness. And I went on amateurishly to sketch a plan of the soul so that in each of us two powers preside, one male, one female; and in the man’s brain, the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman’s brain, the woman predominates over the man. The normal and comfortable state of being is that when the two live in harmony together, spiritually cooperating. If one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her. Coleridge perhaps meant this when he said that a great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties. … Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and the man before the act of creation can be accomplished. Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated. The whole of the mind must lie wide open if we are to get the sense that the writer is communicating his experience with perfect fullness. There must be freedom and there must be peace…. The writer, I thought, once his experience is over, must lie back and let his mind celebrate its nuptials in darkness.(Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, pp. 101-108) (emphasis added)
So we must also consider this important aspect of ancient thought -- their emphasis on the parallel relationship spirituality and sexuality, and the importance of uniting the masculine and feminine elements into one whole androgynous mind.
“They understood that in a perfect situation there is still some imperfection.”(486) “The sun and moon tell us that within the yang there is yin, and within the yin there is yang.”(I Ching. P. 256)
“The mutual influence of male and female is a natural as well as social phenomenon." Which refers to masculine and feminine, not necessarily male and female; such relationship may be same-sex, and they may even be within the same person. "Nevertheless, for this kind of relationship to endure, both parties must be selfless, truthful, and humble. Otherwise they won’t be able to communicate with or enjoy each other and be accepted.”(I Ching, p. 264) Only “When people communicate sincerely and truthfully, harmony is created, and things will be achieved easily and smoothly.”(I Ching, p.121)
Then “their mutual relationship comes from the core of their hearts, because they are complementary yin and yang.”(I Ching, p.123)
Virginia Woolf recalled this ancient wisdom beautifully in her classic book, A Room of One’s Own:
“What does one mean by ‘the unity of the mind,’ I pondered, for clearly the mind has so great a power of concentrating at any point at any moment that it seems to have no single state of being. It can separate itself from the people in the street, for example, and think of itself as apart from them, at an upper window looking down on them. Or it can think with other people spontaneously, as, for instance, in a crowd waiting to hear some piece of news read out. It can think back through its fathers or through its mothers, as I have said that a woman writing thinks back through her mothers. Again if one is a woman one is often surprised by a sudden splitting off of consciousness, say in walking down Whitehall, when from being the natural inheritor of that civilization, she becomes, on the contrary, outside of it, alien and critical. Clearly the mind is always altering its focus, and bringing the world into different perspectives. But some of these states of mind seem, even if adopted spontaneously, to be less comfortable than others. In order to keep oneself continuing in them one is unconsciously holding something back, and gradually the repression becomes an effort. But there may be some state of mind in which one could continue without effort because nothing is required to be held back. And this perhaps, I thought, coming in from the window, is one of them. For certainly when I saw the couple get into the taxi-cab the mind felt as if, after being divided, it had come together again in a natural fusion. The obvious reason would be that it is natural for the sexes to co-operate. One has a profound, if irrational, instinct in favor of the theory that the union of man and woman makes for the greatest satisfaction, the most complete happiness. But the sight of the two people getting into the taxi and the satisfaction it gave me made me also ask whether there are two sexes in the mind corresponding to the two sexes in the body, and whether they also require to be united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness. And I went on amateurishly to sketch a plan of the soul so that in each of us two powers preside, one male, one female; and in the man’s brain, the man predominates over the woman, and in the woman’s brain, the woman predominates over the man. The normal and comfortable state of being is that when the two live in harmony together, spiritually cooperating. If one is a man, still the woman part of the brain must have effect; and a woman also must have intercourse with the man in her. Coleridge perhaps meant this when he said that a great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties. … Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and the man before the act of creation can be accomplished. Some marriage of opposites has to be consummated. The whole of the mind must lie wide open if we are to get the sense that the writer is communicating his experience with perfect fullness. There must be freedom and there must be peace…. The writer, I thought, once his experience is over, must lie back and let his mind celebrate its nuptials in darkness.(Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, pp. 101-108) (emphasis added)
So we must also consider this important aspect of ancient thought -- their emphasis on the parallel relationship spirituality and sexuality, and the importance of uniting the masculine and feminine elements into one whole androgynous mind.