YIN-YANG AND THE TEN THOUSAND THINGS

Jane English

The traditional yin-yang (feminine/dark-masculine/ light) symbol below shows a bit of yin in yang and of yang in yin.

A phrase that appears often in Tao Te Ching is “the ten-thousand things,” as in this excerpt from that book:

Tao begot one

One begot two

Two begot three

And three begot the ten-thousand things.

The ten-thousand things carry yin and embrace yang

They achieve harmony by combining these forces

— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 42

The image below, Yin, Yang and the Ten-Thousand Things, came to me in meditation around 1988. It shows yin-yang opening up and bringing forth their rainbow children, all of creation, the “ten-thousand things.”

Expanding on that traditional symbol and rather than seeing yin and yang as opposites, we can realize a co-creative balance of masculine yang and feminine yin in our lives, so that their children, the rainbow of our creativity, the ten-thousand things, can be born.

Tao may be found not only in the undivided ground of being, nor solely in the polarity of yin and yang, dark and light, dynamic and receptive, but also everywhere in the full rainbow spectrum of the ten-thousand things: all the myriad ways the un-nameable whole is divided into discrete beings.

—from page 16 in the Jane’s book A Rainbow of Tao

On the facing page in that book I placed this photo that seemed like the traditional yin/yang symbol made manifest in the world of nature.

With her late husband, Gia-fu Feng, Jane English created a best-selling edition of Tao Te Ching in 1972, followed by over thirty years of annual Tao Calendars.

See eheart.com for art-quality prints of the image Yin, Yang and the Ten-Thousand Things, as well as other works by Jane English