Why do we care what's yin and yang?

[Bearded Dragon]

There is this duality thing. Fair enough. Most 2 year olds know about opposites. With any kind of knowledge in computers it's no far stretch to then accept that you can make any combination of things out of the base 2 number system. Again this is no great revelation. So, why do we care about this stuff? I'll highlight a few points and you can make up your own mind.

 

The first point I'll make is that yin and yang don't mean ANYTHING unless there is a reference back to 'self'. I'm not going into what 'self' is as that's an entirely different discussion. I could make a computer game with a great big mass of dualities in it but if nobody plays the game then any kind of knowledge you think you have about the game is meaningless dribble. All these yin/yang combinations only come alive when you start to interact with them. Only in application are they relevant. There is no application without a doer (reference). As such, any talk of absolute yin and yang is part of the "knowledge of the game without playing it" scenario and has no practical value. If I was a builder it would be like having a tape measure. It just lays out the continuum without providing any information.You could talk about the poles of magnets. So what? It doesn't effect me so how is it relevant at all? Once I start interacting with magnets then it's relevant, but would you look at that.... now there's a reference point.

 

Due to the reference to 'self' in the previous point it would be a good idea to make the next point in regards to figuring out what that 'self' is. What could be more of an illusion than going through life with the law of duality in mind but having the delusion of applying it to a reference that isn't really you? Any traditional methods from every legitimate tradition are very clear in regards to how to do this with respect to yin and yang. The idea in this respect is to have no preference to either. Non-attachment to either side of duality. When I see that people want to improve themselves by just having more positive attributes it worries me a little. This is the idea of society that we have to be more positive. In actual fact by encouraging attachment to positive attributes we're setting up the conditions for misery when life throws a curveball and you plummet into negativity. You really want to be able to handle life's little twists and turns, and to do that you have to be able to accept anything on either side of duality. In other words if you're serious about refinement then you'll take whatever comes along and not force a contrived existence of delusion by putting a bandaid over your issues by just merely having more positive attributes.

 

So, you want to work with yin and yang directly. Since I have explained that the issue of 'self' is paramount, and that the legitimate methods of discovering this endorse non-attachment to both yin and yang, it should be more or less clear that you shouldn't really care about yin or yang at all until you solve the issue of 'self'. At that point it's not even intellectual, so to be honest I doubt there is much benefit talking about it much at all.

 

 

[Marblehead]

Well, you did a pretty good job of talking about it. Hehehe.

 

When Yin and Yang are in harmony you have beautiful music.

 

Too much Yin or too much Yang and all you have is noise.

 

But still, we need to understand the difference between "Yes" and "No".

[Bearded Dragon]

Anyone who functions in normal every day life gets the difference. This is part of the reason why this stuff doesn't matter so much. We already get it without thinking about it.

 

The music thing is a good point for letting go and accepting all outcomes. If you drop the idea of harmony and dissonance in favour of a definition of music that encompasses any sound then you're open to the full spectrum of sound variances. Thus music can then tell the story of stuff that people generally don't like, such as noise. Noise is valid. Any sound is valid and descriptive. This is again part of the "why should we care?".

 

In accepting everything you're free from dualism. It's there but you don't care.

[beyonder]

The yin/yang symbol has amazingly little to do with dualistic thinking. One could call that the affirming/denying mind, but that's not what the yin/yang symbol is about:

 

"Through movement, tai chi creates yang. When this movement has reached it's apex, it becomes calm. Through rest, tai chi creates yin. When rest has reached it's apex, movement starts anew. That's how movement and rest follow up on eachother, and become eachothers roots."

-Zhou Dun-yi

[Marblehead]

If you drop the idea of harmony and dissonance in favour of a definition of music that encompasses any sound then you're open to the full spectrum of sound variances.

I'm not that open-minded. I am human.