China Yin And Yang
From Dr. Cousens’ book, Conscious Eating:
Aug 05, 2021 So, if you’re more yin inclined, you need to balance your energy with warmer foods, and vice versa if you’re yang inclined. Moreover, a healthy meal usually features dishes and ingredients with contrasting energies. This is the definition of a well-balanced diet in China. Gender in Chinese Philosophy. The concept of gender is foundational to the general approach of Chinese thinkers. Yin and yang, core elements of Chinese cosmogony, involve correlative aspects of “dark and light,” “female and male,” and “soft and hard.”. These notions, with their deeply-rooted gender connotations, recognize the. Yin and yang (or 陰 and 陽 in traditional Chinese characters) represent duality, or the idea that two opposite characteristics can actually exist in harmony and complement each other. It's the same idea behind quotes like, 'there can be no light without darkness.' Yin (the black segment) and yang (the white segment) each represent various.
The interrelating and complementary principles of yin and yang are key concepts in traditional Chinese philosophy that are used to describe the dynamic nature of the universe. The principles of yin and yang, though polar opposites, do not exist without each other. According to traditional Chinese thought, everything, even the personality, can be viewed from the perspective of yin and yang elements.
- Traditional Chinese medicine, too, is based on the balance of yin and yang in the human body, and they believe that any disease is caused by a loss of balance. The body is divided into yin and yang parts. In general, the inner part of the body is yang and the outer part is yin, the back part is yang and the front part is yin.
- Chinese medicine views the body in terms of Yin and Yang aspects. A dynamic balance between these aspects is characterized by health, and an unhealthy state is an indication of some imbalance between the Yin and Yang of the body. Change manifests itself as Yin transforming into Yang and vice versa.
Yang attributes are contractive, hot, fiery, dense, heavy, flat, and low to the ground. A yang personality is powerful, strong-willed, extroverted,grounded, outgoing, focused, concrete, active, and prone to getting angry easily. An unbalanced yang personality can be overly aggressive, tense, coarse,and irritable and angry. Excessive intake of yang foods can intensify and amplify these yang mental characteristics. For example, although in ancient India they did not call it yin or yang, they fed their warriors flesh foods as a way to increase their warlike characteristics.
Yin attributes are expansive, receptive, cool, dilated, light, vertical, and thin. The yin personality is introspective, receptive, self-contained, quiet,mellow, easy-going, reflective, sensitive, and has an expansive, spiritually oriented mind. An unbalanced yin personality may be “spaced out,” timid,ungrounded, weak-willed, and passive. An excess of yin foods without other yang-balancing factors could cause yin imbalances in the mind and body.
Foods are also classified by their predominant yin and yang characteristics. Foods are not all yin or yang. Each food has a combination of yin and yang elements that are complementary, existing in that food in a dynamic balance. Yin foods are predominantly alkaline-forming, but a few yin foods are acid-forming. Yang foods are predominantly acid-forming, but a few yang foods are alkaline-forming as well. The following categories of foods are listed in the order of most yin to most yang: chemical additives, processed foods, fruits, vegetables, sea vegetables, seeds, nuts, beans, grains, dairy, fish, poultry,pork, beef, eggs, miso, and sea salt or commercial table salt.
Yin alkaline-forming foods are fruits, vegetables, and honey. Seeds, nuts, and beans are acid-forming but slightly yin to neutral. The basic yang foods,such as grains and flesh foods, are acid-forming. Yang alkaline-forming foods are radishes, pickles, miso, and salt. Yin acid-forming foods are sugar, chemical drugs, soft drinks, and alcohol.
Each of these foods has its own yin and yang force and can be said to be an energy in itself that influences the mind toward more expansive or contractive tendencies. Choosing the proper balance of yin and yang food intake is relative to many different factors in a person’s life and total environment. A few of these factors are constitutionally determined. For example, a constitutionally hot yang person will be balanced by cooler yin foods. In the Chinese system, the organs and glands of the body are classified by their yin or yang nature or state of imbalance. Appropriate yang or yin foods are given to help balance and heal these particular organs or glands. One’s work in the world, environmental conditions, spiritual practices, and level of awareness are all forces that affect the yin/yang balance in a person. Food is one of the main factors influencing yin/yang balance.
Sometimes when eating a very yin food, one may crave some yang foods to balance. For example, wine, which is yin, balances cheese, which is yang. Beer, which is yin, balances salty pretzels, which are yang. Alcohol, which is yin, balances meat, which is yang. If a diet is too far to one side, it may stimulate cravings of foods from the other extreme in an attempt to achieve some balance. If one eliminates one extreme yang food from the diet, some-times it is best to eliminate an extreme yin food to maintain balance. So, if you give up beer, you may maintain the balance better if you also give up pretzels.
Our degree of spiritual awareness and transformation affects how much our mind is shifted by the yin and yang energy of foods in a somewhat different way than the other factors affecting yin and yang. In the spiritual process, because it is expansive, it is my impression that people spontaneously shift to more yin foods to support the lighter, more superconductive needs of the mind and body. The mucus- and acid-forming, enzyme-less, yang grains, flesh foods, and other cooked foods tend to decrease the spiritualizing energy of the body-mind complex. The uncooked, primarily yin foods support and activate this expansion of consciousness and sensitivity to the Divine. It sometimes happens that spiritual evolution proceeds too rapidly for a person and they become too quickly expanded for comfort.They might find themselves craving yang foods to slow down the process. On the other hand, if a person’s awareness is expanded in a way that is grounded and balanced, then yang foods will not be craved.
A retrospective research project of mine, on a group of 106 people involved in a spiritual program where there was no training or emphasis on diet, found that 63% of the people shifted to a more yin diet as their awareness expanded over a year’s time. It is as if the organism spontaneously shifts to a more yin diet to support the shift in expanded spiritual awareness and sensitivity. The process of eating to enhance spiritual life involves consciously choosing a diet that will support the expansion of consciousness so that we are reactive co-creators of the dietary change process.
As consciousness expands in a mature, balanced way, it is my observation that more and more yin foods can be eaten without developing a yin imbalance. One does not necessarily develop the symptoms of a yin imbalance such as spaciness, lack of motivation, and poor concentration even if one eats primarily yin foods. The power of a shift toward an expanded spiritual awareness of the Divine is often a stronger force than the yin or yang energies of the foods one eats. This does not negate the general observation that the judicious use of yin or yang foods can be helpful when one feels a need to gently counterbalance certain yang or yin mental or physical states. Food is a supportive rather than determining factor in the development of spiritual awareness. Choosing a more yin diet is particularly effective for supporting the development of spiritual transformation.
By observing the cycle of the Sun, we can use a pole, post at right angles to the ground, and record the lengths of the shadow about every 15 days for a year. The shortest shadow is found on the day of Summer Solstice in China. The longest shadow is found on the day of Winter Solstice. The day of Winter Solstice has the least sunshine in the year. After Winter Solstice, the day will gain more sunshine each day till Summer Solstice. We can say Yang begins right after Winter Solstice and Yin begins right after Summer Solstice in the northern hemisphere.
After recording 24 shadow lines, we move the lines into the diagram of six concentric circles with 24 sectors beginning from Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice. The length of each line will subtract the portion of the length of the Summer Solstice shadow line because we want to give Summer Solstice maximum Yang.
Ancient China Yin And Yang
If the shadow of the pole is observed at the equator, then the length of the shadow on Summer Solstice should be near 0. China is in the northern hemisphere. The shadow of the pole always shows there on Summer Solstice in any city of China. To adjust the shadow to zero length on Summer Solstice is to adjust latitude to the equator.
From Winter Solstice to Summer Solstice, the shadow lines are drawn from the center of the circle to the boundary. From Summer Solstice to Winter Solstice, the shadow lines are drawn from circle boundary to the center, because ancient Chinese believed that Chi Energy goes different directions right after Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice.
Next, we can connect all the lines and dim the shadow lines (Yin) part, the Ying Yang symbol appears. .
How to Draw Yin Yang Symbol
Finding Direction with No Compass
Copyright © 1999- Allen Tsai | Chinese Fortune Calendar
Yin Yang Symbol Related Discussion
Back to the Original Yin Yang Page - Where does the Chinese Yin Yang symbol come from? Revised Version in Chinese at www.worldofmastermind.com
Dr. Stefan Jaeger presented a mathematical description of the Yin-Yang symbol based on the daily sunshine hours throughout the year in the A Geomedical Approach to Chinese Medicine: The Origin of the Yin-Yang Symbol in 2011. To watch Dr. Stefan Jaeger's Yin-Yang Symbol: Mathematical Daylight Model and Video
Translated Languages: Chinese + Portuguese + Serbo-Croatian
INDEX MENU
