Suwen · The Parting and Meeting of Yin and Yang

The text

The Yellow Emperor asked: I have heard that Heaven is yang, earth is yin, the sun is yang, the moon is yin; the long months and the short, three hundred and sixty days, make a year, and the person answers this as well. Now the three yin and the three yang do not answer yin and yang. Why is this? Qi Bo answered: Yin and yang — count them and they may be ten; push them and they may be a hundred; count them and they may be a thousand; push them and they may be ten thousand. The greatness of ten thousand cannot be counted out. Yet their essential is one. Heaven covers, earth carries; the ten thousand things are just being born. What has not yet come out of the earth is called dwelling in yin, named yin within yin. What has then come out of the earth is called yang within yin. Yang gives it its uprightness; yin is its host. Thus birth is by spring, growth by summer, gathering by autumn, storage by winter. Lose the constant, and heaven and earth and the four directions close. The changes of yin and yang, as they are in the person, can also be counted. The Emperor said: I wish to hear the parting and meeting of the three yin and the three yang. Qi Bo said: The sage stands facing south. What is before him is called broad brightness; what is behind him is called great chong. The ground of great chong is named shaoyin. Above shaoyin is named taiyang. Taiyang takes its root at zhiyin and knots at the gate of life; it is named yang within yin. From mid-body upward is named broad brightness. Below broad brightness is named taiyin. Before taiyin is named yangming. Yangming takes its root at lidui; it is named yang within yin. The surface of jueyin is named shaoyang. Shaoyang takes its root at qiaoyin; it is named shaoyang within yin. Therefore the parting and meeting of the three yang: taiyang is the opening, yangming is the closing, shaoyang is the pivot. These three channels must not lose one another. Beating and yet not floating — this is named one yang. The Emperor said: I wish to hear the three yin. Qi Bo said: What is outside is yang; what is inside is yin. Then the center is yin. Its chong is below; it is named taiyin. Taiyin takes its root at yinbai; it is named yin within yin. Behind taiyin is named shaoyin. Shaoyin takes its root at yongquan; it is named shaoyin within yin. Before shaoyin is named jueyin. Jueyin takes its root at dadun. It is the yang cut off from yin; it is named the yin cut off from yin. Therefore the parting and meeting of the three yin: taiyin is the opening, jueyin is the closing, shaoyin is the pivot. These three channels must not lose one another. Beating and yet not sinking — this is named one yin. Yin and yang rush and accumulate, pass as one circuit. Qi is the interior, form is the surface — and so they complete one another.

The line

Qi Bo answered: Yin and yang — count them and they may be ten; push them and they may be a hundred; count them and they may be a thousand; push them and they may be ten thousand. The greatness of ten thousand cannot be counted out. Yet their essential is one.

The note

Parting and meeting are two faces of one thing. The three yin and three yang open and close on the person as the moon waxes and wanes. See the parting and meeting clearly, and you will not take a cycle for an opposition.