by Jessica Burde

Created on: February 01, 2010

The concept of yin and yang is a very old one in eastern philosophy. It is believed to have originated in China over five thousand years ago. The traditional symbol of yin and yang has of late become very familiar in the west - but what does this symbol mean?

The symbol of the yin yang is a circle, divided by a wave into two equal sections, one black and one white. Each section has a small dot of the opposite color its center. A white dot in the black half and a black dot in the white half. Imagine a wavy line going across a sheet of paper. Now imagine a circle drawn around one section of the wave where it rises and falls ones. Color the circle white above the wave, and black below the wave. Now add two dots, one in each half, and there is the symbol for yin and yang.

Yin and yang are said to be the two primal forces of existence. The terms yin and yang have been translated into English in many different forms, but perhaps the best translations would be contraction and expansion.

Yin, as contraction, is the primal force behind all things that focus or pull inward. Darkness pulls in light, cold pulls in heat, emptiness - vacuum or void - pulls in substance, and (traditionally) the feminine, which looks in towards the home. Yang, as expansion, is the primal force behind all things that focus or push outwards. Light expands into darkness, heat radiates into cold, substance fills emptiness, and masculine looks out to the world. Yin is also seen in tranquility, peace, silence and depression. Yang is also seen in excitement, action, noise and destruction.

The dot in each half of the symbol is meant to show that yin and yang both create their opposite. Imagine for a moment one of the theories of the Big Bang. Everything was packed into a single point, ultimate compression, ultimate yin. Then it exploded outward, everything being repelled from everything else - ultimate expansion, yang. Over billions of years, it has exhausted that energy of expansion, until, some scientists believe it can not expand anymore. After it has expanded to it's fullest - reached the ultimate potential of yang, it will begin collapsing again, contracting, becoming yin. When it can collapse no more - when it has reached the ultimate potential of yin, the very pressure of the contraction will have created such heat, such energy, such yang, that it will explode outward once more, in an endless cycle, yang creating yin, yin creating yang.

In the same way, within all that is yin, there is the spark of yang, and within all that is yang, there is the quiet of yin. The two remain in a constant balance. Not a static balance that never changes, but a moving balance, like a wave that always comes back to center.

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