Hand in Hand

For Good vs Evil contest

Everything in the world that occurs, good or evil, has been preordained and nothing can happen unless permitted by God. Any evils that do occur are thought to result in future benefits men may not be able to see. Man possesses free will in that he has the faculty to choose between right and wrong, and is thus responsible for his actions.

Yin-Yang Signification

The Yin-Yang symbol presents some of the most fundamental concepts in Daoist and tantric logic, philosophy, and spirituality. The most prominent concept is polarization: the division and union of two halves. Each half can in turn be polarized, giving some insight into recursion and forming the base for synthesis. The Yin-Yang is not a symbol of dualism but a statement of transcendence into monism, a snapshot of change.

The most obvious concept presented by the Yin-Yang is the polarization and union of two halves. This sets up a framework with which the world can be seen as the interplay between two forces:

In Chinese the two poles of cosmic energy are yang (positive) and yin (negative), and their conventional signs are respectively — and - - . The ideograms indicate the sunny and shady sides of a hill, fou, and they are associated with the masculine and the feminine, the firm and the yielding, the strong and the weak, the light and the dark, the rising and the falling, heaven and earth, and they are even recognized in such everyday matters as cooking as the spicy and the bland (Watts 21).

Thus it is shown that everything has its counterpart; one half of anything is meaningless without the other. There is an active and passive element to every principle, as can be experienced with sight and sound. Seeing only pure light and hearing only constant sound serve us no better than being blind or deaf. It is the darkness from which we discern the light, the silence from which arise the sounds, that allow us to give those sensory experiences their shape and meaning.

The two poles are seen as lovers, coexisting in harmony and depending on each other. This contrasts greatly with the traditional views of righteous dualism that seeks to embrace all light and banish all darkness, setting the forces against each other and making a battle out of life. It is clear from an objective viewpoint that anything that is good for one is evil for another. This is why Daoists put themselves in accord with the cyclic nature of the world instead of seeking to linearly advance it.


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