The Nature of Opposites

老子

三

~How does Lao Tzu see the nature of opposites? What is the natural relationship between them? What is their natural movement?

~How can Lao Tzu avoid the critique that he violates the principle of non-contradiction here?

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Everyday we are faced with decisions. Decisions that usually come in twos. Yes or No. Black or White. Agree or Disagree. And in between comes our feelings, feelings that can be described in words that are completely opposed to one another. You feel pain. You feel pleasure. Pain is the absence of pleasure. Pleasure is the absence of pain. You are happy therefore you are not sad. You are sad so that means that you are not happy. But really, which is which? Aren’t they all just two sides of the same coin?

Sun, 2009 

(as cited in Lao Tzu, 1954)

All things carry Yin and hold Yang, with the interacting energy to balance the relationship… Namely the paradigm of the unity of opposites operates in both the natural world and human domain. It includes the oneness of feminine and masculine forces, internal and external, water and fire, night and day, passive and active, as well as receiving and approaching. It indicates that all apparently separate or opposite systems are part of the whole universe and are governed by the same oneness or Tao…

Yin or Yang? Or probably, it’s more correct to say Yin and Yang. Two different things with different functions. Opposite extremes. But still, they complement each other. They are one of the same, each one as a part of a whole just as birth implies death and death implies birth. Life needs death, otherwise how can life become life? Just as death needs life for how can there be death if there is no life? Separating life from death is harmful, as it goes against nature.

Chuang Tzu Book 

(Fung, 1947)

There is birth, there is death; there is issuing forth, there is entering; and that which one passes bin entering in and issuing forth is the Gate of Heaven. The Gate of Heaven is non-beings and all things emerge from non-being.

Things come in circles just as after night there is day and after day there is night. A child is born and later on he will die and the same goes for the animal and the plants around him. Everything that begins will surely come to an end, all in their own time. This is how it was, how it is, and how it will always be. The concept of being and non-being is crucial in Taoism as they both lie underneath all things. The Unity of Opposites maintains that those things that seem against one another are actually deeply united. Suppose that in the dead of the night you got home from a party and in that party, all kinds of noises where there, loud and deafening. As soon as you close your bedroom door you are faced with stillness and the lack of noise and so you say that silence is he absence of noise but then as you begin to listen closely you realise that silence is actually something that you can hear and you are surprised that the more you listen to that absence of sound, the more you realise that it is actually deafening. Because of these contradicting statements are first creates chaos but out from this chaos comes balance or harmony. Therefore everything must constantly be in motion against it each other in a circle to arrive at an equilibrium just as the wheel aways turn. For someone who is in line with the Tao, he who possess more should give away to those who have less because nature is the same. Same can be said about the art of Tai Chai. At first glance, you will see the person performing the art as very graceful, soft and gentle, but inside all forms of pressure are there to keep the balance and control the body movements. It takes years and years of mastery for the art to appear natural and when it does, one might say that the person performing is doing it as if he merely taking a walk or dancing to the rhythm of his own body without any difficulty or without breaking a sweat. 

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