lementary creative forces in nature. Yin is female and is thought to be passive, negative, dark, cold, soft, and wet; yang is male and is thought to be active, positive, light, hot, hard, and dry. The terms "positive" and "negative" in this instance do not have the meaning of good or bad or desirable and undesirable; instead, they are used in the same general sense that physicists use the terms to refer to the positive or negative electrical charges of particles. Yin and yang together symbolize the eternal and profound duality in nature. They are opposites, but they counterbalance and complement each other.
Life is thought of as a combination of yin and yang. The yin brings death, cold, and darkness, while the yang brings life, heat, and movement. Yin is an interior force, and yang is an exterior force:
Phenomenal life results from the interaction of these two current-forces. the constantly disrupted balance must unceasingly be re-established in a perpetual movement, for if there is imbalance, the result will be psychic and physical disorder which eventually leads to illness.
Such illness can be physical or spiritual.
The symbol for yin-yang is a circle with a curve not unlike a reverse "s" through the center. One side is dark, the other light, and each has a small circle like an eye in the opposite shade embedded within it. The symbol can be interpreted so that the whole circle represents the harmony of yin and yang. The dark area is yin and the light area is yang. Each invades the other's hemisphere in the way the curve affects the whole, and each also possesses an element of the opposite at its very center (in the form of the "eye"). The symbol also shows some of the characteristics
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