Yin and Yang

The lessons of the yin yang symbol.

1.. Light and dark, order and chaos, man and woman, pragmatism and creativity,  you would think are polar opposites but  they are both equally capable of extremes.  Pragmatism for instance, just has a delayed effect, the solution that works right now and is simple, is often not the solution that works in 6 months or under different circumstances at which point chaos ensues to bring about a necessary correction. Both yin and yang when they go to extremes need the other to bring them back to the Tao, hence each side has the seed of the other in it.

2.  Chaos, left untamed,  is the dragon that will devour you.   Order, left unchecked, is the prison that renders you useless and unable to change in response to an ever changing world, a world which will also devour you.

In the yin yang symbol, the Tao is the the line that weaves its way between chaos and totalitarianism sometimes leaning one way sometimes the other but never becoming part of one or the other. Always maintaining a form of balance, not unswayed completely,  yielding and acknowledging the dominant force of the time but also always striving to prevent the extreme, bringing us back to the center even momentarily before we are pulled one way or the other, like the supple tree that bends in the wind so as not to break.

The Tao acknowledges good and bad, light and dark and knows they are not all good and not all bad and have the seeds of the other in them and that BOTH are necessary as the energy they provide propels us forward, the Tao is shown as a wave, like an oscillating sound wave, harnessing the energy of both and moving forward in one direction.  Like a snake, the life force of the universe, represented by the tao, uses the constant energy required to move right to left and visa versa to propel itself forwards. Without the struggle to come back to the center there,  is no progress, humanity would die, the faint ember would go out and there would only be darkness.

Applying the Tao to life gives a certain amount of perspective and understanding of why things happen in life happen, on a personal or global scale, and with that knowledge comes a certain peace of mind, that the universe always attempts to bring about balance, and that it is always a necessary struggle, as the struggle is the journey and the power that moves us ever forward to a better future.