Yin Yang Theory

Tuesday 4 September, 2007 at 7pm
Morningside United Church, Edinburgh.

Although this is intended as a follow-up to the earlier Taiji: Quan and Yi workshop, the material does stand on its own, and provides a useful introduction to the theory of yin and yang and its general application.

Taiji Quan is a subtle physical art based on the philosophy of yin and yang. The Yijing is a rich philosophical text exploring the theory of yin and yang in symbolic terms. These two forms of expression share a common metaphysics (形而上学) which is the theory of yin and yang (陰陽論). This workshop provides more detail on this important philosophical background.

Starting once again with the polarization of Wuji (無極) leading to Taiji (太極), and the subsequent separation of yin (陰) and yang (陽), we will consider the meaning of the diagram on the left, including a brief look at what quantum physics has to contribute to our understanding of this key idea from classical Chinese philosophy.

From this starting point, the symbols of the Yijing naturally emerge, leading first to bigrams (pairs of lines), and then to trigrams (line triplets). We will explore the meanings of these symbols from the perspective of natural phenomena and elemental energies. For example, the four bigrams naturally correlate with the four sessions and the four phases of the moon.

The workshop sound last about two hours, including time for some practical work and discussion.

The material presented in the workshop covered the first two parts of what will be a four part presentation on the theoretical foundations of the symbols of change.