Life History and Importance of the Times of the Ying Yang (Essay Sample)

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The term or word ‘yin-yang’ means the unity of two mutually conflicting but synchronising and harmonizing forces that exist within the universe. The Yang was considered to be the positive, active, and strong force during the using the negative, passive, yielding force. In a narrow way of thinking, as it means two matching fluid-force of elements that mix and later determines the existence of everything in the universe. The Ying and yang were said to be interdependent, unreachable and balanced; the features were represented by a dot at the heart of each half of the flowing circle in the yin-yang.
In some conventional accounts, the yang is symbolised by the sun, a light male, while the young in terms of the moon, dark, female, winter, moist. Yin-yang abstract vision and also had a strong organizational insinuation and suggests that the yin-yang way of thinking is more theoretical in terms, the yin-yang model of interaction and transformation that replicates the shared knowledge of the ancient Chinese people how they would understand some fundamental way to the world and how they looked at some happenings around. It has extremely influenced the placement of approach, and procedural policies, of succeeding Chinese thinkers in various schools or movements.
According to the yin-yang way of thinking, anything in the universe fundamentally contains two equally opposed but correlative and complementary forces, the yin and yang. The composition and interaction between both the yin and the yang are considered to have the following characteristics. A universal yin and yang co-exist within everything in the universe, fundamental their interaction within is the ultimate foundation or pushing force for everything's that became a process that is forming, developing, altering, and changing, complementary: they are interdependent, mutually supportive, and supplementary, a holistic: they are united into one thing within rather than separate without a dynamic: they are not in a static state but in the changing process and transformation into each other; and are in harmonious equilibrium they seek balance through cooperation and in accord.
Confucius was written down by his students to become Analects. Many of his clever sayings are still used today. One of them being it is as hard to be poor without complaining as to be rich without becoming arrogant. The goal to Confucianism was learning to be human. Rendering to Confucius saying, each person should try and act with virtue to all community matters; family, community, state, and kingdom, so as to ensure order and unity. Man's virtue in all its forms is called "Jen" is all encompassing and unable to be defined, in some respects similar to the Tao. Confucian rituals contained many rituals. Procedures for birth, marriage, and death were rigid and specific. For example, according to Confucian funeral tradition, a willow branch is always carried behind the body of the deceased symbolizing the soul of that person.
However, by far the most influential aspect of Confucianism remains the Analects: "Not to teach a man who can be taught, is to waste a man; to teach a man who cannot be taught, is a waste of words. The wise will lose neither men nor words. What is the essence of the Dao? According to Laozi (Lao Tzu) the dao (Tao) is the absolute supreme existence; no existence is earlier than the Dao. At the beginning of the universe, the dao (Tao) is undifferentiated. There was something undifferentiated and yet complete, which existed before heaven and earth that is Dao. Therefore there is first the Dao, and then there is the integrated universe. Laozi (Lao Tzu) said: "The dao (tao) produced the one. The one produced the two. The two produced the three, and the three produced the ten thousand things it is often understood that one is the original material force; it produces the two Yin and Yang and the Three are their blending with the original force which blending produces ten thousand things. It should be noted that the evolution here is natural and has nothing to do with any personal, purposeful will. It is the first systematic theory of the creation of the universe; it is a sort of cosmology. Although cosmology later developed much further, basically it was influenced by the viewpoint of the Dao De Jing. Therefore the Dao De Jing is negative toward any purposeful or conscious ruling power, and for the same reason often describes the essence of dao (Tao) as nameless, formless, having no action, no desire, etc.
Furthermore, Laozi (Lao Tzu) defines the essence of dao (tao) as Wu. All things come from being, and being comes from super being--Wu. All things in the world were produced from something with name and form while things with name and form were produced by things transcending experience, time, and space. In other words, Laozi (Lao Tzu) asserts that dao (tao) which transcends all the sensory experience is the final cause of all things that exist in sensory experience. In this way, the Dao De Jing touches the problems of ontology. Later during the Wei Jin Period a scholar of mysterious learning named Wang Bi developed the thought of Dao De Jing from this side; he tried to use Wu, the super being that transcends experience, to prove the rationality of existence in experience: As all things are produced by Wu, so they are rational.
How can the dao (tao) be gained by human beings? The Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) assumes that people should follow the example of the Dao, which means that people should have De. De means finding the way to reach the Dao. In the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching), the supreme moral integrity is to take no action. The Sage said: I take no action, and the people of themselves are transformed. I love tranquillity, and the people of themselves become correct. I engage in no activity, and the people of themselves become prosperous. I have no desire, and the people of themselves become simple. This, then, is to follow the example of the Dao, and a person who follows the dao (tao) is a sage.
But how can people know the Dao? Laozi emphasized that for one to know the dao was totally different from the search for general knowledge. Usually, the more you know, the more you want. Since the dao (tao) is nameless and formless, you cannot know it as one knows things by name and form; the way to know the dao (tao) is to get rid of things with name and form step by step. By eliminating all things that bear names and forms, in other words, without any so-called knowledge, you can know the dao (tao) naturally.
How can we grasp the character of the Dao? Laozi (Lao Tzu) assumed that it is impossible to put the dao (tao) into any language. He, in fact, said: "The dao (tao) that can be told of is not the eternal Dao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. Therefore theDao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) uses many metaphors to explain the Dao. For example, it says that the character of dao (tao) is just like water. "There is nothing softer and weaker than water, and yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things. "The great river and seas are kings of all mountain streams because they skilfully stay below them.
It is especially interesting that the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) often uses a negative way to explain the Dao: nameless, formless, no activity, no desire all are negative ideas. Usually, what the dao (tao) makes sense by saying what is not the Dao, and what kind of character the dao (tao) possesses is described by saying what kind of character the dao (tao) does not possess." Reversal is the action of the Dao; weakness is the function of the Dao sage’s follow the Dao, what they pursue is just the opposite of what common people chase after. For example, common people seek to be in their prime, but after things reach their prime they begin to grow old and perish.
Therefore, sages never seek their own prime. In order not to perish common people always compete with one another that a sage does not. "It is precisely because he does not compete that the world cannot compete with him, so he can protect himself in this way and remain whole." In order to destroy, it is necessary first to give; in order to grasp, it is necessary first to give. This is called the subtle light. The weak and the tender overcome the hard and the strong. All these principles remain until the present very influential in Chinese action and thought.
Dao-De-Jing is the most important canon of Daoism philosophy, as well as the most important scripture of the Daoism religion. Daoism religion--the only religion created by the Chinese nation developed at the end of Han Dynasty in the first century A.D. Its main belief is that one can attain immortality that one can raise to heaven with body and soul.
This belief of the Immortals appeared much earlier than Daoist religion, during the third century B.C. But in the Dao De Jing (U), we already find certain information. For example, in Chapter 59, we find "that the roots are deep, and the stalks are firm, which is the way of long life and everlasting vision." I...