Friday Night at 8: Yin

From Yin &Yang and the I-Ching written by Kelly L. Ross, Ph.D.:

Yin originally meant “shady, secret, dark, mysterious, cold.”  It thus could mean the shaded, north side of a mountain or the shaded, south bank of a river.

Yang in turn meant “clear, bright, the sun, heat,” the opposite of yin and so the lit, south side of a mountain or the lit, north bank of a river.

From these basic opposites, a complete system of opposites was elaborated.

Yin represents everything about the world that is dark, hidden, passive, receptive, yielding, cool, soft, and feminine.

Yang represents everything about the world that is illuminated, evident, active, aggressive, controlling, hot, hard, and masculine.

Everything in the world can be identified with either yin or yang. Earth is the ultimate yin object. Heaven is the ultimate yang object. Of the two basic Chinese “Ways,” Confucianism is identified with the yang aspect, Taoism with the yin aspect

Yin should not be confused with gender, by the way.

Although it is correct to see yin as feminine and yang as masculine, everything in the world is really a mixture of the two, which means that female beings may actually be mostly yang and male beings may actually be mostly yin. Because of that, things that we might expect to be female or male because they clearly represent yin or yang, may turn out to be the opposite instead.

Interestingly, Ross goes on to refer to the yin aspect of capitalism:

the great economist F.A. Hayek invoked Taoism in the defense of capitalism, a system that does not seem particularly yielding or gentle, but is based on the principle that government should “leave alone” (laissez faire) private property and voluntary exchanges and contracts. The free market would thus be the Not Doing of government.

Ross goes on to say that “control” is yang.

I think we’ve seen that our free market has become more yang even without government control.  The MIC is yang.

But this essay is about yin, the dark, the feminine, the yielding.  And it is, to one extent or another, present in all human beings.

How does one fight without aggression?  How does one survive oppression without breaking?  Is the dark, hidden, passive invisible to those who would seek to control, not offering even a shred of active resistance, entirely yielding, yet enduring?

I think we all know the story of the difference between a tree bending and breaking in a storm, and all the allusions to humility, modesty, aspects of our humanity that allow the bend and prevent the break.

I believe most history books and media in general do not speak of yin.   Victors are spoken of but not those countless others who survived the great historical conflicts of humanity.  We read the biographies of the victors, the major players, which morph over time into revisionist versions and then revisions of the revisions but even as we see in every victor the yin and the yang, the reason they have biographies and are called victors is the same reason they get into the history books and such – action, yang.

Yin victors are, I believe, described and their memories preserved in what I would call oral tradition.  In Judaism there is the written law (Talmud) and the oral law.  Literally, one human being speaking to another.  It is not a typical kind of conversation.  It is a transmission of not only information and knowledge but wisdom, something that if written down loses its yin quality, it’s flexibility and flow.  The same is true in Tibetan Buddhism, 2,500 years of oral transmission, from teacher to student, in addition to the large body of written work, the sutras, the Kangyur and the Tengyur.

Imagine the stories all over the world, spoken stories that somehow, if we hear them, sound familiar though they may never have been written down.

Yin.

A Friday Reflection from your Friendly Prowler.

Happy Friday to all.